My Hero Academia: The United Academies
by MyDearWatson
Summary: A great battle was fought between the Heroes of America and the Master of Villains. Our heroes won, but at a great cost. From that cost, a promise was made and kept to guide the future generations of heroes in the United States in order to keep the country from the brink of collapse again. But darkness is always stirring and the next Master of Villains is ready to return! SYOC
1. Prologue

**A/N:** Haha, here we are again. More information after the chapter.

I don't own My Hero Academia!

Please enjoy!

* * *

 **Prologue**

 _A large section on the city lay in rubble. While half-standing cities had become the norm as of late, this city had been torn and ripped apart. Fires still burned, black smoke spiraling up into the evening's golden sky. Glass, cement, and paper littered the ground, melted buildings still sizzling. Splatters of blood covered areas of broken buildings and streets, some of the splatters having unmoving bodies next to them._

 _She had to push a large cement block off her before she was able to see any of it. Her head was spinning, and she could feel blood trickling down across her body in several places. She wiped blood from her left eye as she forced herself to stand, despite the growing feeling of bile building up in her throat. That last hit had been one that was meant to kill her, but she had managed to deflect it enough to stay alive and land her own killing blow on her opponent. At least she had hoped she had finished off her enemy. After being flung across the street and into a demolished building, another wave of power had been released across the city, knocking everyone to their feet and causing more damage to the already broken city._

 _She looked up at the sky, the shining gold peeking through the swirling smoke feeling like victory, even if only for a moment. She breathed in deep, but quickly let it out as a ragged sound. She knew that some of her ribs were definitely broken. It was then that she caught sight of a leg sticking out from underneath a roof that had fallen. It was covered in the now tattered green outfit of the man she had previously been fighting. Her body tensed up upon seeing it, but her guard soon fell when she saw blood pooling around the leg. Her enemy was dead._

 _She knew the final blast of power had to come from_ him _. She began looking around her to try to find any sign of the man. Her eyes fell upon all the destruction and death that the battle had caused. She could feel the bile rise in her throat again with every dead ally she came across. The only thing keeping it down were the sights of her comrades and friends still alive and moving to their own feet. What was left of their enemies were quickly dispersing, leaving behind their fallen brethren and their corrupt ideals._

 _Finally, at the top of a large pile of rubble, she saw him. She felt her skin pull across her face to form a smile. It hurt to even do that small action, but it was worth it when she saw his form silhouetted in golden light._

" _Alexander," she said, her voice raspy from all the shouting she had previously been doing, "Alexander!" she forced herself to shout when he did not turn to face her. She eventually began moving one foot in front of the other to get herself to move towards him. Her fellow heroes soon began following her, "We did it! You did it! We won!"_

 _But the man never moved to face her._

 _As she got closer, she could see the crumpled body of the Master of Villains in front of the man, his head blown off his shoulders._

" _Alexander, didn't you hear me?" she called out, slowly climbing up to the man, "You did it. You saved us. You saved the country from falling! Alexander!"_

 _She reached an aching hand out towards the man. Though, that hand came to a stop inches from his wrist. Her eyes widened at the sight she found._

 _There stood the man she called teacher, the man she called friend. He stood still atop that pile of rubble with blood and wounds covering his body. He had died giving their enemy a fatal blow. But even with all the pain he must have been in and knowing the sacrifice he was making, the man still smiled. He smiled brightly and proudly in the face of death._

 _Silence passed through the city when it was discovered that their greatest hope had died. Every hero still standing felt the punch to the gut and their hearts drop. While they had won the battle, defeated their enemy, what had it cost them to do so?_

" _Alexander," the woman spoke again, tears having already spilled over. She should have realized it sooner, that the man knew he was going to die in this battle. Thinking over his final words before the fighting began, it made sense now. She had just been too nervous at the time to know it, "I…I'm sorry," she said, "You shouldn't have died for this. None of us should have died for this."_

 _She glanced back out across the city, her heart feeling heavier upon seeing all her fallen brethren again. She turned back to face the man, the golden light finally breaking through the smoke to shine down upon them._

" _But I will keep my promise. Your death…all your deaths will have meant something. The country isn't dead yet. We will rebuild it. We'll make it stronger. We will unite and guide the next generation towards something better. I promise, Alexander. I promise!"_

 **. : + : .**

"Of course, the damn air conditioner would go out on a day like this," Charlotte Victors grumbled. She was currently sprawled out across her couch with three fans directly on her. She had moved the plethora of folders she previously had on her coffee table down onto the floor to keep them from being blown away, "All the technology in the world and the air condition still manages to break down!"

It was late July, so the heat and humidity in central Ohio was on full blast.

"And we've got another damn month of this stupid heat! I can't wait for the school year to start already!"

At that comment, the purple haired woman grabbed a file off the floor, swinging it open so her brown eyes cold scan over the next group of applicants for her school.

"I wonder which ones will make it this year," she said as she lazily flipped through the information sheets, "There's quite a few that look promising and a few that I'm hoping might surprise us this year."

She glanced down at the stack of folders, feeling like it never grew smaller.

"I wonder if the other schools have this much to handle every year. I'm sure UPH has thousands of entries from all over the country. Everyone wants to go to school on the west coast," she said, sticking her tongue out at the comment, "The Midwest is just as good. I would even say better. But it has to be the East North Central Midwest! Those punks over at West North Central couldn't even take down normal thugs!" she shouted, fire appearing in her eyes.

Before she could get herself more worked up, a sickeningly sweet pop song interrupted her. She dug out her cellphone from her back pocket, seeing the name of a man across it that made her sigh. Though, she knew better than to ignore him unless she wanted to hear him complain about it later.

"Yeah? What do you want?"

"Always so polite, Charlie. How are you in charge of the school again?"

"Did you only call me up to sass at me or did you have an actual reason?"

"We need some help down in the Short North. Some hipster wannabe lost their cool when their artwork was rejected by a studio and now they're tearing up the place."

"Seriously? You all can't handle this? You know how many files I still have to go through?"

"Look, would you just get down here already? I'll buy you a damn coffee when we're done."

"It better be of the venti variety, and no skimping out on the whip cream this time!"

"Yeah, yeah, I got it. Just get down here."

Before she could answer him, there was a click on the other line to indicate that the man she had been speaking with hung up on her.

"Did he just…he did! That asshole just hung up on me! He's gonna owe me coffee for a week!"

She jumped up from the couch, forgetting that she had a folder sitting on her chest. As soon as she stood up, the papers went flying across her living room thanks to the fans around her. She felt her eye twitch in irritation before she lost her cool again.

"Dammit! I hate air conditioners! Stupid, useless machines! And where is that repairman?! He should have been here by now, dammit!"

* * *

 **A/N:** There you go! I hope you enjoyed it!

So yes, a new story. I've been wanting to do a MHA story for a while now. I believe the idea first came up back in November. I've been trying to leave the idea alone, but after re-watching MHA recently, the idea came back at full force. So here we are, lol.

This is my first time writing for MHA, but it is not my first time writing an SYOC. I usually write for the Fairy Tail fandom, but I think switching things up will be helpful for my writing and whatnot.

So then, let's get through some needed information.

This story is set during the same time period as MHA, but obviously it is not in Japan. This one takes place in America, specifically in the Midwest, as was revealed in the chapter. And more specifically in Ohio/Columbus, Ohio as that is where I am from and that's the area I know best.

There are 9 hero academies in the United States, each being in a different region:

New England

Mid-Atlantic

East North Central (Midwest)

West North Central (Midwest)

South Atlantic

East South Central

West South Central

Mountain

Pacific

You can google regions of the United States to see exactly which states make up each region. Most high schoolers will normally go to the academy that is in the region that they live in, though it is not uncommon for them to choose an academy outside of their region, so you are more than welcome to choose any state for them to come from. The school that will be the main focus of the story is the United East North Central Hero Academy of America, or UENC for short. That region consists of Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, and Wisconsin.

Now then, I will be taking only 20 students for the Freshman Hero Class, which will be the class focused on the most. I have two student spots taken already, which leaves 18 up for grabs. These students will be in the age range of 14-15 as well, so please keep that in mind.

I will be taking 5 teachers for now, one of which is already taken, so that leaves 4 spots open. More teacher spots may come in the future. If you would like to make a teacher, please PM first so we can go over some details and requests that I have for them.

I will be accepting 5 Pro-Heroes that are not teachers as well. Again, please PM if you are interested in making one of these as well.

For other classes, such as General Studies, Support, Business, upper classmen etc, I will let you all know when I need characters for them, so please do not send in any of those types of characters for now.

The same goes with villains. Though, if you want to add a villain to your character's past, that's fine and we can talk about that more after you send in your character. But please do not send in any villains right now as I will have a different form for them.

As for the form and any quirk restrictions or other restrictions, they will be in my profile. I will only accept characters through a PM. And please label your character like this – 'Charlotte Victors – The United Academies', but replacing Charlotte Victors with your character's name.

That should be it for now.

If you have any questions or anything, please feel free to PM me.

I'll get the next chapter up after I get a few characters in and I can start plotting some more things.

Have fun creating your characters! I look forward to seeing them!

Yours Truly,

MyDearWatson


	2. Fine Art

**A/N:** **CHA! First chapter completed!**

 **I don't own MHA!**

 **Please enjoy!**

* * *

 **Chapter 1: Fine Art**

 **Columbus, Ohio**

Charlotte Victors walked down along High Street, barely glancing up to look at the iron arched sign that read 'Short North'. Her dark aviators blocked out the afternoon sun while also giving her some disguise from people on the street. Though, from the multiple whispers she could hear as she walked passed groups of people, it wasn't much disguise. She was certain that if she had worn her hero outfit, it would have taken her much longer to reach her destination.

"It's her, right?"

"It's gotta be. Look at the purple hair."

"There's other people with purple hair."

"No, it's definitely her. That's definitely Show Stopper."

Charlotte picked up her pace a bit to keep from being trapped by fans. She moved her focus away from their excited whispers to the strips of closely placed buildings that made up the Short North. Her brown eyes scanned over art galleries, trendy shops, coffee houses, pubs, and nightclubs, hoping it wouldn't be too difficult to find the shop she was looking for.

"Pretty sure that's the place," she mumbled when her eyes landed on a large crowd that stood outside one of the many art studios. Her suspicions were correct when she began to hear people talk about a crazy man ruining artwork.

She began to push her way through the crowd; though everyone was pushing to get a good look at the action, especially when there were two pro-heroes on the scene.

"Move…please move," she said, grunting after getting elbowed in the stomach. Her eye twitched before she let out a shout of, "Move, dammit!" As the shout echoed through the crowd, everyone stopped and parted as they looked back at the woman. Charlotte rolled her shoulders as she easily walked through the parted crowd. She didn't even bat an eye at the police officers she passed that were keeping the crowd at bay.

"Always so pleasant, Charlie."

She looked over to who had spoken to her, seeing a tall man with brown hair that was cut short and a bit of dark scruff covering his face. His hazel eyes were droopy and tired looking, but they held a bit of mirth as they stared at her. He was in his hero outfit of a black battle suit with gold accents, the suit being littered with clean cut holes.

"YOU!" she shouted, "You hung up on me, Sorin!"

"Yeah, what of it?"

"You're gonna owe me coffee for a week!"

"That wasn't the deal."

"Yo! Can you two argue later?! I could use some help here!"

The pair turned to see a man with spikey, dark blonde hair shouting back at them. His eyes were a sharp, bright blue that appeared to give off a minor glow. He was also in his hero outfit, which consisted of an open, white short-sleeved shirt with an overly large collar, the shirt being covered in neon blue tribal markings, along with black jeans that fanned out into small bellbottoms, white tennis shoes, and black leather gloves. What stood out on the man were the Chinese dragon tattoos on each arm, one being blue while the other was purple.

"Chris is here too and you can't handle the situation?" Charlotte asked, looking back at Sorin with an unamused stare.

"The guy going crazy can spray out different liquids from his fingers, one of which is acidic. So any time I try to get close to him, he just melts my blades. Chris can barely get close enough to the guy to try and land a punch. The only reason he can even try approaching the guy is because the liquid doesn't affect his plasma blades."

Charlotte looked back over to Chris to see the energy blades sprouted from his hands. They extended three feet back, which gave him a decent shield to use against their current opponent, but it wasn't like he could extend those blades out towards the man releasing the acidic liquid.

She then looked around the art studio to see paints of varying colors sprayed across all the other paintings as well as a number of them either being knocked down and ripped apart or half melted because of the acid.

"Tch, how annoying," she said before glancing back at Sorin, "Make me a pipe. Just a small one will do."

"A please would be nice."

"Do you want me to help you or not?" she said with as much bite as she could muster.

Sorin rolled his eyes in response before beginning to make a small rod, the iron pipe rising through an open cut in one of the suit holes on his arm. Once the weapon had been completed, he tossed it over to Charlotte, "Good luck."

She smirked at him, "I'll show you how to put on a good finale."

Before giving Sorin a chance to retort, Charlotte walked away from him and towards the liquid spraying man.

"Keep him distracted," she said as she passed Chris.

"You got it!" he said with a large smile, "Oi! Art failure! Over here!"

Upon hearing the quip towards him, the spray painting man turned to glare at Chris before aiming the acidic liquid solely at him.

While the man had his attention on Chris, Charlotte moved in behind him, being sure to step carefully over any bubbling parts of the floor. She eyed the man for a minute, finally seeing how young he was. The guy couldn't have been any more than twenty, which served to piss off Charlotte even more. The guy was barely an adult and throwing tantrums in public. He either hadn't received any discipline from his parents or he thought too highly of himself…probably both.

"Five seconds should be good. Three is the norm for punks like this, but I'm irritated and this bullshit interrupted my work," she said as she tossed the iron pipe into the air, "Stop," she said, causing the pipe to freeze in mid-air. She then grabbed the time stopped weapon and began running up behind the paint man, "Five Second Whiplash!" she shouted, swinging the rod towards the side of the man's head.

The pipe came out of its time stopped state right before it made contact with his head, giving it a boost of momentum due to it moving while coming out of its frozen state. As soon as the iron connected with him, the man's head spun to the side while his eyes went white. His fingers stopped spraying liquid while his body was flung a few feet away before landing on the floor with a heavy thud.

There was silence for a moment as everyone's eyes stayed on the paint man. After several moments of no movement from him, cheers began to erupt from the crowd surrounding the studio.

"I think we can put a cap on that," Charlotte said with a smirk, finding her own paint pun funny despite the unamused stares she received from both Sorin and Chris, "Don't judge me! I knocked him out! I get to say whatever I want as a closing line!"

"We're definitely judging," the two men said.

Before she could snap back at them, an officer approached the group.

"Thank you for taking care of him," he said, motioning towards the unconscious man, "We'll handle it from here with arresting him and taking him into custody."

"Of course," Charlotte smiled in reply, "Thank you and your men for your hard work today as well."

"It's amazing though," the officer said with a wide smile, "All three of you here at the same time – Bloody Camelot, Glare, and Show Stopper. You're all amazing! Oh! Let me get a picture with you, Glare. My son is a huge fan of yours. He wants to be a hero like you!"

"Well, I'm not one to disappoint my fans!" Chris said as he stepped towards the officer, "But ya know, if he were to end up being an officer like you, he'd still be a hero!"

The comment seemed to make the officer's day as his face completely lit up. The man seemed even more elated when Chris began making poses for the man, with and without his plasma blades.

Sorin and Charlotte just stared with straight faces while thinking, 'He's ridiculous.'

 **. : + : .**

 **Chicago, Illinois**

Jazz music flowed through a comfortable home, a young teenage girl humming to it on her bed. She was sprawled out in comfortable clothes of a red and black plaid shirt and black skinny jeans. Her long, wavy black hair washed over her back while a large chunk of her bangs covered her left eye, the visible eye being of a light purple color.

She was currently reading over the newest article on local heroes from the newspaper, enjoying the peace of the summer afternoon, Though, after an odd amount of time of total silence in the house aside from her music, she began to worry. She clicked the pause button on the stereo remote, listening for any sign of movement or conversation.

She narrowed her eyes at her open door, knowing something wasn't right. She slipped off her bed and quietly made her way down the hall and out into the living room. There she made eye contact with two young boys. The trio stood in shocked silence for a long moment before the boys smiled widely at her.

"Look, Rissy! I'm a canvas!" one of the boys said, wearing only a pair of shorts while stretching his body out across the wall.

"And I'm making a masterpiece on it!" the second boy said, coloring across the skin with the paint that came out of his fingers.

She ran a hand over her face, "What have we told you two about doing this? You both need to go get cleaned up before dad gets home with lunch."

"Too late."

The girl let out a yelp upon hearing a voice behind her, causing her hair to puff up and harden into thorny spikes.

"Oh, sorry Iris," the man who spoke before said, "It's just me, so don't try to put any holes through our lunch."

"Dad," she said, frowning at him. Her hair began settling back to normal, "You know I don't like it when you sneak up on me like that. It makes me…puff up."

"You turn into a porcupine!" one of her brothers said.

"Peter, un-stretch yourself and go take a bath," the man said, "And Jason, go wash up your hands and arms. No eating until you do."

"But daaaaaad!"

"Go," he said, pointing towards the bathroom. The two boys pouted, but did as they were told. The man then turned to face his daughter again, "Iris, are you sure about being a hero?"

"Yeah, plus mom would have liked it," she said, rubbing an arm nervously.

The man sighed as he sat the food down in the kitchen, "I don't want you to become a hero because it's what your mother would have liked. I want you to do it because it's what _you_ want to do."

"I do," she said, looking from the floor towards her father, "Do you not think I can do it?"

"That's not what I said, but you do…well…you startle easily, and you don't have a lot of control over your quirk."

"That's why I want to go to UENC. I want to get better. I want to be a hero. I want to become a hero people read about…that mom would have read about."

"Alright," he said, smiling at the girl who was rapidly wiping at her watery eyes. He set a gentle hand on top of her head, "Then you better show that in your entrance exams."

She returned his smile and nodded at him.

"Hey, you think that Gold Caesar's daughter will be heading to UENC with you? She's about your age, right?"

"Yeah, she is, but I don't know her plans. We went to different middle schools, so it's not like we really know each other or anything."

"I guess so. Well, be on the look out for her. It'd be weird if she wasn't aiming to be a hero," he said as he began to unpack lunch, "Now then, go check on those brothers of yours. I haven't heard the bathtub or the sink turn on."

Iris narrowed her eyes back towards the hallway that led to the bathroom, knowing the two boys were up to no good again. She walked towards it, coming to stop in front of the doorway. Her eyes stared at the bathroom in shock, her brothers staring back at her silently. She then quietly backed away from what looked like a painted murder scene and back out into the kitchen.

"Well, are they getting cleaned up?"

"Um…well, remember when you said you wanted to repaint the bathroom?"

His eyes went wide with worry before he ran back to the bathroom. It wasn't much longer before she heard her father shouting, the teen easily picturing him falling to his knees in agony as he did so.

 **. : + : .**

 **Columbus, Ohio**

A young teenage girl stood on the small porch to a cute and simple ranch home. The front yard and around the porch were filled with plants and flowers with a stone walkway leading up to the front door and back around to the backyard, making it appear more fanciful and wonderous than it should have been.

Her perfectly straight chestnut hair blew in a small breeze that passed by after she had knocked on the door. She quickly fixed it back into place around her shoulders, her bangs symmetrically framing her face while the chestnut color matched her small orange-brown eyes. While she was a teenager, her clothing had the appearance of a thirty-year-old working for a law firm in New York City, which caused a few people passing by to do a double take when they saw her.

Annoyance crossed her face when no one answered the door. She knocked again, much louder this time, knowing the boy she was looking for would be inside.

"Reed," she said directly into the door, "I know you are in there. Open this door already."

No answer came, but the volume of the T.V. rose after she spoke.

"Turning up the television will not make me go away. You promised to help me out today. We had a meeting arranged and everything. You are going to throw off my schedule if we do not make it down to the new training facility at Suprema in the next half hour."

"You could just walk through that door, ya know!"

"I will do no such thing," she said, her tone sounding more factual than offended, "I am in no mood to deal with my own quirks drawbacks today just because you are being lazy."

When no answer came again, she decided to pull out the firepower she had been holding back on him.

"If you will not open this door, then you leave me no choice but to get your aunt involved," she began, knowing that he was about to retort with some sort of smart remark, "And before you say anything, I know exactly where she is, considering what is going on in the news right now. She is in the Short North dealing with an idiotic artist that does not know how to take no for an answer. It would not take much to call her and have her come here to unlock the door as this is her house, after all."

There was resounding silence coming from the house after that.

"Do not think I will not do it, Reed," she said as she began to pull out her cellphone.

Though, she didn't need to worry about making good on her threat as the door swung open and a teenage boy stood before her.

"Geez, Katherine," he said while running a hand through his dark navy hair. He pushed a heap of it to the right, revealing dark brown eyes in the process. He was still currently in his pajamas, consisting of basketball shorts and a t-shirt, "Must you make trouble for me this early in the day?"

"It is two in the afternoon."

"And? I was up till five in the morning. I need my beauty sleep."

"And what were you doing up so late? We specifically scheduled today's meeting in the afternoon so you would have time to get up and get ready."

"I love how you call hanging out with a friend a scheduled meeting," he said with a smirk, "And if you must know, I was up playing games with friends."

"You had friends over until five in the morning?" she asked, giving him a deadpanned look.

"What? No. I was playing games online. We had been setting up a raid on a dungeon for a week at least and last night was the night we planned to start the raid. There's this guy named Ford in the group that's amazing with-"

"I do not wish to hear your nerd talk," Katherine cut him off with a snap.

"You're the one that asked me," he said with a shrug, "Anyways, I need to stay here today since the air conditioner broke and Aunt Charlie wants me to be here when the repairman comes."

"I do not have time for this!" she said as she pulled her cellphone back out and began dialing a number.

"Awww, are you all disappointed because you can't hang out with me like you wanted?"

"Hush!" she said before beginning to immediately chew someone out on the phone. In no less than five minutes, there was work van pulling into the drive way. A repairman stepped out and quickly made his way inside to start his work, apologizing to the both of them along the way.

"I swear your quirk is getting people to do things, not walking through walls," Reed said with a laugh.

"Yes, well, your aunt no longer needs to worry about paying for any repairs either. And he will not take any longer than ten minutes to fix things, so hurry up and go get dressed while we are waiting."

"Yes, Queen Katherine."

"And none of your snark," she huffed at him, "You promised to help me test out the new training facility today."

"Yeah, yeah, I get it. Just give me a few."

 **. : + : .**

"So, no hero outfit today?" Sorin asked, looking over her clothing of shorts, a tank top, and strappy sandals.

He, Charlotte, and Chris had finally made it into a coffee shop after finishing up at the wrecked art studio. Sorin had not gotten any coffee for himself, but had made good on his deal with buying Charlotte a large blended coffee drink of some sort with a heaping amount of whipped cream on top. Sorin felt there may have been little actual coffee in the drink, but he wasn't about to argue that fact with her at the moment. Chris had ordered a simple iced coffee.

"I wasn't about to waste showing up in my costume for a brat throwing a tantrum," she answered after taking a large gulp of her drink, "How did you two end up there anyways?"

"We were patrolling the area when it happened," Chris said, "The dude went nuts! I was barely able to get a couple punches in too," he said, almost pouting at the thought of a good fight gone to waste, "And Sorin couldn't get close enough to him either. It was hard when the dude was flinging acid everywhere."

"Well, I'm sure he's going to regret it since he'll not only have to pay for all the art he damaged, but all the damage done to the building as well," Charlotte said.

"Thanks for the help."

Charlotte shrugged in response to Sorin's comment, "At least it got me out of the house. I was dying in there because of the heat and no air conditioner. It's a lot cooler here inside a place with air. Plus, Reed should be there for the repairman if the little twerp gets up at a decent time."

"I don't think you have much room to talk," Sorin said with a smirk, "Now then," he added, cutting her off before she could say something to him. "You were looking over applicants before coming to help us?"

"Yeah, what do the freshmen look like this year?" Chris asked with his own wide smile, "Hope there are some good brawlers."

"Oh, you'll have your fair share of brawls this year, Chris," Charlotte answered, "Gaila Augusta is part of the new batch applying."

"Woah! Gold Caesar's daughter?!" the blonde man asked with excitement.

"Yep."

"I figured she would have gotten in on recommendation," Sorin said.

"Apparently, she wants to be accepted on her own merits, not the reputation of her father."

"I guess she has something in common with your nephew then," Sorin said.

"I suppose so," Charlotte replied, "Reed is a good kid, even if he's a smartass."

"Who else you got?" Chris asked.

"There's Katherine Johnson, one of Reed's friends here in Columbus. Her parents own and run the largest Hero Agency in Ohio called Suprema. I'm pretty sure she'll make it in."

"I'm surprised she's going for a hero spot," Sorin said, "Her older brother is in UENC, but he's in the management course."

"Everyone has their own reasons for what they choose to do. I'm sure her reasons will come to light soon enough," Charlotte said, "There are a couple others from Chicago that look promising. We even have some submissions coming from kids who live in California, so that was a nice surprise."

"Did we get any recommendations?" Sorin asked.

"A couple, like usual."

"Ohhhh! Recommendation kids are my favorite!" Chris said, "I enjoy knocking them down a few pegs in combat training!"

Charlotte smiled at him before her face turned serious, "There are a couple troubling ones though."

"But isn't that the norm?" Chris asked, "There's usually at least one super weirdo in the bunch."

"Well yeah, but there's a difference between being weird and being _weird_. There's one kid that I'm not sure about right now – Columbus Fleischer."

"The surname doesn't sound familiar, so it sounds like he'll be a first-generation hero for his family," Sorin said, "But what about him is troubling?"

"I'm not sure. I suppose it's just a feeling," Charlotte said, "But I don't want to overthink on it either. I don't want all the teachers, nor myself, to be biased towards thinking he's a bad kid or something when we haven't even met him yet. We'll need to wait until the entrance exams to start making judgment calls on students."

"I suppose that's true," Sorin said.

"But I'm amped up about the exam!" Chris said, "It's in a few weeks, right?"

"Two weeks, then another week to make decisions and announcements on who was accepted and which class they were accepted into," Charlotte answered, "And for one of those weeks, someone is going to be buying me coffee for the entirety of it for hanging up on me!"

Charlotte moved to look at Sorin to see the man no longer sitting at the table with them. She heard the tinkling of the bell to the front door before turning to see Sorin standing outside, looking at them through the front window they sat beside.

"You asshole!" Charlotte shouted.

"What? I can't hear you, sorry!"

Her eye twitched before she leapt out of her chair, grabbed her coffee, and took off outside to chase the man down.

Chris laughed at them before taking another sip of his coffee, "I feel like this year is gonna be a real good year!"

* * *

 **A/N:** And there we are! Hope you all enjoyed it!

 **Credits**

 **Charlotte Victors – MyDearWatson**

 **Sorin Reiner – Dreadburner94**

 **Chris Ein – Damashii**

 **Iris Blackthorn (and family) – Momochan77**

 **Katherine Johnson – Mary Allen**

 **Reed Victors – MyDearWatson**

YAS! I finally was able to get things rolling. Sorry it took me a moment to get the first chapter out, but I was waiting for characters and piecing some things together and deciding on who to introduce and how, so it took some time to figure it all out.

But OMG! The responses to this story were amazing! I figured I'd get some interest for the story and a few people wanting to submit characters, but holy crap! You guys are amazing! All spaces for character slots where filled in less than a day. I think that's the quickest I've ever seen spots fill up, lol. So thank you all for your interest in the story! Hopefully it turns out to be a good one!

So yes, all spots that I had asked for are filled, so I am not taking any more characters right now. The characters I have received so far have been great and fun! Some of you got really creative on their quirks, so that was great to see! Once I get all of the characters in – which I would like to have them in within a two week timeframe – and am ready to open more spots for other types of characters, I will let you all know, but for now, submitting characters is closed off (unless you've reserved a spot of course).

Thank you all for all your wonderful reviews! They were amazing and awesome and thank you! I normally do review responses in my chapters, but since there were so many of them, I'll need to go through a respond via a PM, I should be able to get to all of them soon. Basically one way or another, you should eventually get a response from me about your review, but I always try to say thank you for them here in my A/N.

I'm not sure how many chapters I'll have before the entrance exams or how many characters will be introduced up until then. I don't want to rush through introducing everyone right now, so I'm going for what feels right for now. I don't want to spoil who's all going to be in the freshman class before it starts, so not everyone will get introduced early like in this chapter.

I think that's about it for now.

I can't wait to see what other characters I get from you all! And please look on my profile for restrictions!

I should have the next chapter up soon, so see you all then!

Yours Truly,

MyDearWatson


	3. The World is Colored in Gray

**A/N:** Whoo! New chapter time!

I don't own MHA!

Please enjoy!

* * *

 **Chapter 2: The World is Colored in Gray**

 **Oceanside, California**

A young man leaned back in a black computer chair, his long legs propped up on the corner of his bed. His room was dimly lit by a lamp in the corner and the large television screen in front of him. He pulled his large gamer headphones off long enough for him to swipe a hand through his rustic blonde hair to move it out of his bright blue eyes. He quickly put the headphones back on and continued the game he was currently playing.

"I suppose I can take out some low-level monsters while I wait for someone to show up online," he mumbled, moving his character to head out to a large field across from the town he had been loitering in. He barely got through the third monster when a name flashed up on the corner of his screen to indicate someone from his friends list was online. He turned the headset on, on his headphones, looking forward to speaking with them.

"Ford! My man! What's up?"

"Hey, Reed," he said, a smile spreading across his face, "Just biding my time until someone from the group showed up."

"Well I'm happy to be the first here. Sorry I'm a bit late. Katherine kept me longer than I had planned, and her new training course took a lot out of me. I passed out as soon as I got home!"

"She sounds…intense."

"I suppose that's the nice way of putting it," Reed said with a snort of laughter, "She's really not so bad. You just gotta know how she ticks and not taking everything she says at face value," he explained, "But anyways, that raid last night was great! All your spells and attacks were on point!"

"And we got through it in one go. I thought we would have to come back to it tonight. I felt kinda bad for keeping you up so late, it was only two in the morning here when we finished."

"Don't worry about it. I already knew it would be a late night. Plus, we should be in the same time zone pretty soon."

Ford knew what he meant by the comment. Just before summer started, he had told Reed of his intentions of going to UENC. Reed had suggested several times that he come to Columbus early and stay with him before the entrance exam so he could get to know the city. He could almost imagine what the place looked like through all of Reed's stories and descriptions, but staying over in a place he didn't know for an entire summer and still have to take the exam to ensure he stayed there honestly just freaked him out. He was sure he'd have a panic attack daily from worrying about upsetting Reed's aunt to Reed taking him to all new places filled entirely with people he didn't know. It would already be hard enough to make the trip there when the time came.

"Ford?"

Ford found himself rocking in his chair slightly from all the sudden thoughts of change and social interactions to come. He shook his head to rid himself of the thoughts and eventually found himself calming down again.

"Yeah, I'm here."

"Freaking yourself out again, yeah?"

Reed took Ford's silence as a yes.

"Don't worry so much," Reed said, "It's like I've told you before, you'll come here, rock it out in the exam, and then we'll be in the hero class together. That way you'll already know me, so obviously you'll already be a cool kid, and you'll know Katherine by default…sorta…well you've heard me talk about her enough anyway."

"You make it sounds so easy."

"That's because it will be! Think of it like one of our games. Plan out your end goal, put your plan into action, and soon enough you'll reach the treasure!"

"Yeah…yeah! Just like a dungeon raid!"

"Exactly!"

It was during that moment of elation and confidence that Ford heard a loud slam through his headphones. He jumped a bit in his chair, wondering what was happening on Reed's end. The silence that took over worried Ford more than the slam and it felt like it went on forever even though it was only a few seconds.

"Reed Martin Victors!"

'Martin?' Ford thought, not having expected that to be his middle name.

"What's your problem?!"

Ford was surprised that Reed could so easily snap back at his aunt.

"How many times do I have to tell you to keep it down?! I can hear you over the T.V. in the living room!"

"Then turn up the T.V.!"

"The hell did you just tell me?!"

Ford heard a noise that he was sure was Reed sticking his tongue out at the woman.

"Ohhhh! You little twerp!"

"Why are you all up in my grill anyway?! Aren't you supposed to be having smooshy-smooshy time with your boyfriend?!"

Ford's face instantly turned red after hearing that.

"Just wait until I catch you!"

Ford heard a bunch of loud noises and shouts after that for a good twenty minutes at least, indicating that Reed was running around his room to keep away from his aunt. He could feel himself begin to rock in his chair again as unsure feelings began to creep up on him again.

'How am I supposed to plan for things like that?!'

 **. : + : .**

 **Columbus, Ohio**

Charlotte was making her way from the parking lot to the main building of UENC the next morning. The main building was large and oval shaped and was where all regular classes were taken. It shone in the summer sun, the large windows making it appear glossy and new. A large flag pole was placed in front of the school, a flag of green, black and white swaying in the light breeze at the top of it, the name of the school sewn across it.

The black top parking lot was mostly empty, save for a few cars that she knew belonged to the handful of teachers she had asked to come in that day. Her tennis shoes scuffed across the pavement as she slung her computer bag across her torso in order to free her hands to throw her hair up into a high ponytail.

Though, as she was passing the side of the school, she felt a hand pull on her wrist, causing her hair to fall around her shoulders as she hadn't managed to wrap the hair tie around it yet. Her surprised eyes landed on an evenly muscled man in a dark hoodie. She looked up into brown eyes that matched her own. When she realized who had pulled her into hiding, the surprised look on her face quickly changed into a scowl.

"Why are you here?"

The man took a slight step back upon hearing the anger and resentment in her voice.

"Are you really going through with it? Are you really going to let him take the exam?"

"I'm not going to stop him from doing what he wants. You had the same dream as him. Why would I stop him just because you messed up?"

"You don't understand, Charlie."

"You don't get to call me that anymore!"

A thick and tense silence filled the air. The man looked away from her in shame and guilt, unable to look into the fierce brown eyes that stared him down. Charlotte kept her body rigid, unable to drop her guard in front of him, despite who he was to her. A rush of emotions flew through her, as they always did when he was around, making it so she didn't know if she should break down crying, throw her arms around him in a bear hug, or punch him across the face and turn him into the police. But what she did know is that she wouldn't show him any of those things, those emotions. Instead, she kept up a cold and hard front, refusing to show him any sort of mercy.

"I'm sorry," he said.

"That's all you say anymore."

"What do you want me to say? You won't let me fix anything."

"It's not your words I want, Brian. Your words don't mean jack anymore. All you have left are actions, and your actions are proving, well, shitty," she said, causing the pair to go into another round of silence. She eventually let out a small sigh, "Why are you here?"

"I don't want him to take the exam. Certain things are about to go into motion."

Charlotte's eyes turned sharp, her body moving quicker than he had expected as she stepped towards him and grabbed the front of his shirt, "What things?"

"I can't talk about it."

"Tch, of course you can't. You always come with a warning, but then never say what it's about," she said, releasing his shirt and waving him off, "You need to leave before someone sees you."

Before she could turn the corner of the building, she was yanked back again and slammed up against the wall. His hands were on either side of her, having turned a deathly cold blue with a few small black patches on them while the building under them began to ice over.

"Don't let him take the exam, Charlotte. Don't let him go down the path of a hero. Let him be a normal kid and do normal things and grow up to have a normal job with a normal family. Please."

The desperation in his voice almost caused her hard mask to falter. His eyes were suddenly the ones she saw in her memories and dreams. They were the ones of the protector he had been so many years ago before tragedy and betrayal struck him. But then the memories of what happened in the aftermath of that tragedy came up on her so fast that it felt like the whiplash from her quirk hitting her. The pain, the loneliness, the shame. It had all been his doing.

"I am not afraid of you. I will not keep Reed from doing what he wants with his life. I will not let you control him because you're too afraid of doing what's right."

"And what's right anymore? Everything's still so messed up. Nothing was fixed after the war with the Master of Villains. Everything is colored in shades of gray and you know it."

"I know that there are still things to fix, but there will always be something to fix. We can't keep lingering on the past, Brian. We'll never move towards the future if we do," she said, pushing one of his hands out of her way. She stepped away from him and glanced back at him as she began walking towards the front of the school again, "The world might be colored in gray, but what you did to Reed and Gran and me, that's all black and white."

She saw his body clench and throw a hand over his face as she turned the corner, feeling a twang of sadness for him.

"Don't come around the school anymore. You'll be arrested on the spot if you do."

Charlotte continued walking towards the front of the school, her guard up until she was about half way to the front doors. It was then that she let out a large sigh, running a hand through her hair. It got stuck in a tangle part way through, reminding her that she still needed to throw it up in a ponytail.

As she worked to put her hair up, she had to fight to get her mind and body to calm down. It had been several months since she had last seen the man and she hadn't been prepared to see him today, much less have him begging not to let Reed in the school.

"Yeah right," she snorted, "The little twerp would find a way in regardless of what I told him."

"Didn't think you'd let him go so easily."

Charlotte jumped at the voice, looking up to the front doors to see a man in a white doctor's coat standing there. In one hand was a large cup of coffee while the other swept his two-toned hair – orange fading into yellow – to the side. His blue eyes kept her locked in place for a few minutes, worried about what he would say next.

"You're lucky I'm the only one out here. I saw you parking and figured I'd come out to greet you. Didn't know I'd run into a bad reunion though."

"Yeah, well, neither did I," she huffed, "You're not gonna tell the others, are you, Koko?"

He shook his head, "That's not really my style and I don't feel like getting mixed up in that hot mess."

"Thanks…I think."

"You okay?" he asked, knowing how the interaction with the man must have made her feel, "I thought you were going to bring him in the next time you saw him?"

She knew he was referring to her angry venting the last time Brian had shown up, "The world is colored in gray," she said, not liking that she was using Brian's own phrase to explain herself. She walked up to the door and took the man's coffee from his hand, "At least I know he's alive."

He gave her a nod in reply, knowing that pushing this specific subject for too long would backfire on him, "You could have at least asked for the coffee first. Now I have to go make a whole new one for myself."

"But you always make them perfect!"

"And you're late on top of that."

"I had to make sure the twerp was alive in his room. I'm pretty sure Katherine threw him through the ringer yesterday."

"I heard you gave him a good wrestling match on top of that."

"He had it coming! Smooshy-smooshy, give me a break!"

"So you're hanging out with your nephew while the rest of us have been here for two hours?" he asked, giving her a stern look, "It was more like you slept in, wasn't it?"

"Oh, come on, Koko, don't be like that."

"Only friends who are on time, especially when they're the one that set the time for the meeting, get to call me Koko. You, on the other hand, get to call me Yashiru."

"What?! Don't be stingy!"

"Yes, I believe it will be Yashiru until the start of school."

"So mean!"

The two began to move inside the school, Charlotte crying and complaining to him the entire way to the break room, where Yashiru made himself a new cup of coffee, and then continued all the way to the facility where the entrance exam would be held. It was to the left of the school and was currently modeled after downtown Columbus, so large, tall buildings and roads upon intersecting roads filled the area.

"You're not changing my mind," Yashiru said as the pair entered the facility and made their way into the screening room where they would be able to watch the exam once it started in a few weeks.

"But Kokooooo!" Charlotte continued to complain, drawing out his name.

As they entered the screening room, they were greeted by the straight face of Sorin.

"You're late."

"Not you too! Look, I'm sorry! I forgot to set my alarm clock and then I had to check on the twerp to make sure he was still part of the living!"

"I knew you slept in," Yashiru said.

"You not letting her call you Koko for a while?" Sorin asked, his lips twitching up into a smirk.

"She's cut off until the beginning of the school year."

"You're both horrible!"

She then chose to ignore the conversing men to look towards one of the screens. It was there she saw Chris and another teacher testing out the robots they were preparing for the exam. While she had heard about the large robots a number of other hero schools used for their exams, Charlotte disliked a simple straight up brawl with robotic tanks. The ones that UENC used were much more complex. They all appeared to look human and they were programmed to make specific decisions depending on what the examinees did. So if a student were to move in to attack them, they would pull out a knife or a gun to defend themselves with. If the student chose to hide instead, they would hunt them down. And so on. They were essentially smart robotic thugs and they had numbers of them at their disposal.

"Yeah, come on, you punks!" Chris said as he sliced through one of the robots with his plasma blades.

He quickly rounded on another robot and threw out a right hook. The robot managed to dodge the punch before throwing out a kick at the blonde.

"Nice try," Chris said with a grin as he grabbed the robot's leg and threw it up in an arching motion to slam it back down on the ground. It sputtered a few times before going still.

A robot snuck up behind the man, stepping softly with a knife in its hand. It waited a moment longer before charging in with the knife. Though, it didn't have much of a chance as Chris spun on a heel, slamming a fist into its head. He then cut across its middle with his other arm, the plasma blade slicing through it like butter.

While Chris continued to slice and dice the robots, Charlotte's eyes moved over to another screen that held the other teacher that was testing out the robots.

He was an older man with short black hair, though it was receding slightly. He wore a straight and serious face as he watched the robots from atop a roof of a shorter building. In his head, he was already planning out multiple ways to play out his next move, depending on what the robots would do. He blended in well with the shadows of the buildings, considering his attire was made up of dress pants, a turtleneck, heavy boots, and leather gloves, all in black. He soon rolled up the sleeves of his shirt as his dark blue eyes noticed movement in the alleyway next to the building he stood on.

"Scaling the side of the build then, is it?" he said, pulling out a twelve-inch bowie knife from its hidden spot.

He walked to the side of the building to see five robots making quick work of scaling the building. He kept a straight face as he jumped over the side of the building. He plunged the knife into the back of the robot closest to him, the blade sliding down through most of its back before he yanked it free. He moved the knife into the back of another robot while pulling out several surgical blades. He threw the first round of them at a robot next to him before throwing another round at the robot below it, hitting the vital parts of them that kept them functioning. He pulled his knife out from robot in front of him, letting himself drop to the robot directly below him. He pulled the robot from the building and forced it underneath him as they fell the eight feet they had left before reaching the ground, plunging the knife into its chest right before they hit the ground.

He then twisted the knife out of its chest and began walking out of the alleyway. As he began cleaning off the blade, the other four robots he had taken out during the fall all clattered to the ground on top of the robot he had used to break his fall. He slid the knife back into its hiding place, not bothering to glance back at the mess behind him as he moved onto a new area.

Charlotte pressed a large red button to stop all movement of the robots, flicking the intercom on to speak with the two men.

"So what do you think?"

"Not too shabby," Chris answered, letting his blades disappear, "But they still seem a bit weak. Are we able to up their power level?"

"You were slicing through them pretty easily. I supposed they should put up a better fight during the exam," she said before turning her attention over to the other man, "And what about you Mendel? Any suggestions?"

"They appear adequate enough. I favor that they can make decisions depending on how a person acts, but it does feel as though something is missing," he answered, "What do you think about an ability to learn as they observe? Or else the same attacks will beat them over and over again."

"I'm not trying to have these robots take over here," Charlotte said, "But I'll see what our support team can whip up between now and the exams for added strength and predictability. Plus, I have one or two things in mind that I'd like to add."

As she said this, a sly and dark smile spread across her face.

"What are you planning?" Sorin asked.

"You'll see," she said in a sing-song voice.

In response, the other four men sighed, knowing whatever she had planned, while it would be entertaining for them, it would be a nightmare for the examinees.

"Now then!" she said, a bit of the sly smile still on her lips, "Why don't we call it a day? I'll get the needed information over to support and then we can head out to brunch. My treat!"

"It better be," Yashiru said, taking a large sip of his coffee, "You arrange a meeting that you're late to, stay for only fifteen minutes, and then out to brunch it is."

"Do you want the free food or not?"

Yashiru stared her down for a long minute, let a single twitch of his eye show, and then promptly turned to head out towards the parking lot.

Charlotte grinned in response.

"There better be some major meat supplied in this brunch," Sorin said, following the coffee wielding man out the door, "I was up late too and still managed to be here on time."

Charlotte simply stuck her tongue out in response before shutting down the screening room and heading out the door to meet up with the others.

* * *

 **A/N:** And there we are! I hope you all enjoyed it!

 **Credits**

 **Fjord 'Ford' Gomain – ObieSenpai**

 **Yashiru Kosenzu – LunairiaBlaze**

 **Mendel Quentin Connery Devlin – ManofPewter**

Whoo! I had a lot of fun with that chapter! From the humorous bits to that dramatic scene in the middle! CHA! I really loved all of it! So I hope you all did too! And I hope the characters turned out well this round!

So I'm thinking next chapter we will finally be getting to the entrance exam. I'm pretty sure anyways. There will be some things leading up to the actual start of the exam, so it might take a couple chapters to get through all of it, but we'll just have to see how things play out.

GAH! All your reviews were wonderful! They all brought a smile to my face and I'm just really happy to see you all enjoying the story and seeing which characters you all like! I'm really glad Katherine and Reed turned out well as I wasn't sure how you all would like their friendship since they're the opposite of each other, but they seemed to turn out very well and quite likable from all your reviews. And Iris was received quite well too. I think she's super adorable, so I'm glad the rest of you liked her too! But again, thank you for those wonderful reviews and for reading! :3

Again, if you are still sending in a character you reserved, please check out my restrictions on my profile.

Also, yes, I know this was updated twice. The first time I updated the story, something went wrong and it wasn't showing the chapter. So here's to hoping the second time updating this works!

I think that should be it for now.

I'll have the next chapter up soon!

Yours Truly,

MyDearWatson


	4. Show Us Something Magnificent!

**A/N:** YAS! A new chapter!

I don't own MHA!

Please enjoy!

* * *

 **Chapter 3: Show Us Something Magnificent!**

 **Columbus, Ohio**

Gaila Augusta stared down the boy that sat across from her on the Greyhound bus she had taken from Chicago to Columbus. She had felt his eyes on her for most of the trip which was pissing her off to no end. Eventually, she began to stare right back at him, her eyes set in a hard glare, hoping to intimidate him into looking somewhere else; but the intimidation play hadn't worked. He continued staring even as the bus pulled into the large station in downtown Columbus.

"Tch, finally!" she grumbled as the bus came to a stop.

She got up out of the seat, grabbing a black and red backpack as she did so. She carefully slung it over her shoulder, having to maneuver it around the metal pylons that stuck out of her shoulders and arms. In total, Gaila had eight pylons, one on each shoulder and shoulder blade and two on the back of both upper arms.

While she moved out of the seat and situated her backpack, she could still feel the boy's eyes on her. Eventually, she snapped, turning around to face him.

"What's your problem?! You've been staring at me this whole damn trip! Either say what you want to or piss off!"

The boy stood up, being much taller and muscular than Gaila expected. He practically towered over her, his spikey white hair seeming to add to his height. Though, his height and build didn't bother Gaila one bit. She stood her ground while continuing to wear a scowl solely meant for the boy in front of her.

"You're Gold Caesar's daughter, yeah?"

"Yeah, what about it?"

"You here for the UENC entrance exam?"

"Yeah, what about it?!"

"And you didn't take the recommendation into the school you could have easily gotten?"

"YEAH, WHAT ABOUT IT?"

Gaila's scowl quickly became a snarl while her shout had silenced the small group left in the bus.

The boy wore a straight face for a long moment while he studied her. Finally, he smirked at her, "You're gonna wish you took that recommendation."

"Excuse me?!"

"You heard me," he said as he turned away from her to walk off the bus, "It was real stupid of you not to take the recommendation because I'll be outranking you in the exam and taking your spot in the hero class."

Gaila's eyes went wide in anger, disbelieving what she was hearing. Before he could get off the bus, she grabbed the hood of the gray hoodie he wore and yanked him back with a tug so hard that the sweater choked him in the process.

"Run that by me again, you moron."

The boy was surprised by the ferocity in her voice and the fact that it felt and looked like the aura around her became much darker. Though, like Gaila, he wasn't about to back down.

"The name's Raios, not moron. Raios Homura, and you better remember it. I'll be rising to the top before you and I don't need daddy's legacy to do it."

Without thinking, Gaila threw her free fist forward to pop the boy on the nose. He took her by surprise when he caught her first, clamping down on it tightly.

"You're gonna have to try harder than that."

"Tch!" She clenched her teeth as she kicked the back of his knee, causing him to drop to the floor of the bus. She jumped over his fallen form, her red-streaked silver hair flying out behind her. She glanced back at him when she landed solidly on her feet, "I won't even need my quirk to beat you."

She ran off the bus after that, Raios leaping to his feet to chase after her. He jumped out of the bus, disregarding the steps leading out of it, and searched for the silver-haired girl. His blue eyes saw her waving towards a red car pulling up to the curb. He made a beeline for her, several people jumping out of his way in the process. Just as she sat in the back seat, as she could sit more easily in the back due to pylons, he crossed over to the other side of the car and got in.

She glared at him and tried to throw a punch at him, "What the hell are you doing?!"

"Catching a ride," he said as he dodged the fist, "You're heading to UENC, yeah? Might as well kill two birds with one stone by taking me there too."

"Get your own Uber! If you weren't smart enough to call for one ahead of time, that's not my problem!"

"But we're going to the same place, what's the big deal?"

"The big deal is you mocked me and I paid for this ride! Get the hell out!"

As she said this, she began pushing him towards his door, but he caught her hands in the process and began pushing back on them.

"So," the driver of the car said, looking back at the pair, "Am I taking you two to UENC or not?"

"Yeah, yeah, just start driving," Raios said.

"The hell he is! Get out of my ride!"

By this point, she had started pushing a hand against his cheek, which only caused him to do the same thing in return.

"For a girl, you're not real sweet or dainty."

"You're no prince charming either!"

The driver rolled his eyes at the arguing pair, having dealt with their kind before. He began the drive towards the school, knowing it would just be easier to take them there than argue with them about who was going to ride in the car. And at least he'd get paid this way too.

The pair of teens continued arguing and struggling with each other the entire way to the school, missing the scenery of the city in the process. It took a moment to pull up to the school as many kids were pouring in that morning to take the exam, being dropped off by other Uber drivers or taxis or their parents.

"We're here," he called back to the still fighting pair. When they didn't move to get out, he shouted back at them, "Oi! Get out!"

The two stopped in the middle of their struggle, their hands frozen in the middle of pulling at each other's faces. They looked out the window to see other kids walking towards the large and shining school in front of them.

Gaila was the first to scramble to get out of the car. She hopped out, turning to glare at the boy still in the car, "You sure as hell better stay out of my way during the exam. I'm going to make it into the hero class and I'll sure as hell rank better than you! The rest of the world is gonna know my name, but I'll make sure you'll be the first person to remember it! Gaila Augusta, top ranked hero and the girl who's gonna put you in your place!"

With that declaration, she slammed the car door in his face and angrily stomped her way towards the building, many of the other kids moving out of her way.

Raios' teeth clenched hard, angry that she thought she had gotten the last word in. He quickly got out of the car and ran after her, not wanting to lose sight of her going into the exam.

"The school's gonna have their hands full if either of them get in," the driver said before moving onto his next pick up.

 **. : + : .**

Iris Blackthorn stood before UENC, gawking at the size of it and how brilliantly it shone. She looked to the green and black flag waving lazily in the light breeze, feeling a mixture of nerves, excitement, and doubt, all of it making her feel like she was going to puke on the spot. She searched out a trashcan close by just in case the mix of breakfast in her stomach decided to resurface.

"Don't psyche yourself out before the exam even starts."

She looked back to see her father smiling at her as he moved to place a gentle hand on her head. Her brothers were on either side of him, smiling up at her as well.

"Good luck, Rissy! You can do it!" the two boys said.

She smiled meekly in reply to them. While she knew they meant well and she appreciated their encouragement, it still didn't help to ebb the feelings swirling around in her stomach. She looked up at her father again with uncertainty.

"There's so many kids here. How am I supposed to do well enough to be seen with so many kids? I didn't know so many would be here. And what if it's an all-out brawl or one on one sparring that I have to do? I don't have any experience with that. And what if I end up embarrassing myself in front of all the kids and the teachers watching?"

"Whoa there!" her father said, laughing lightly in reply, "You're going to overload your brain asking so many questions at once."

"But dad…"

"Look, I know it seems like a lot, but I know you'll do just fine."

"How do you know?"

"Because you are your mother's daughter. She'd be ecstatic to see you standing here. She'd probably be better at encouraging you too," he said with another laugh, "But I know she's watching you today, so show her and the teachers what you're made of. Prove to them that you deserve a spot in the hero course. But most of all, prove to yourself that you can be a hero."

"Thanks dad," she said, a smile and a slight blush across her cheeks.

"Alright then, we'll be off," he said, ushering her brothers back towards the car, "We'll be back to pick up a hero in a bit!"

Iris smiled again at his comment, watching the car as it drove off from the school and out of sight. Her smile quickly fell after that as she turned to face the intimidating building before her. Kids were still pouring in around her and she felt the just-about-to-puke sensation come back. Her family was no longer there to make her feel comfortable, even just a little. She was completely and utterly alone, and it felt like everyone's eyes were on her. She felt her body closing in on itself as if to try and make herself appear smaller so as not to have anyone staring at her, though she was sure that it only made her stand out more.

She stared back up at the flag with the school name across it and the glittering building behind it, "It's way more to take in that I thought it would be."

"You've got that right."

Iris jumped at the voice, her hair puffing out into spikes in the process. She looked beside her to see a tall blonde boy standing next to her. He stared at her in worry, clearly not having expected a reaction like that to happen.

"I…I'm sorry," she said. As her hair settled back into place, she began to stroke it nervously in hopes that it would help calm her down and to make sure her hair wouldn't spike out again, "I wasn't trying to attack you or anything. It's just that my hair does that when I get surprised or nervous, and I'm really nervous right now."

The boy looked relieved when she explained herself, "I'm glad I'm not the only one who's nervous. There's a lot of people here that I don't know and it's stressing me out. Even the building is intimidating."

"I know, right? Like there's this great, amazing feeling around it. It practically feels out of reach, you know?" she said, looking back at the boy to see another worried look across his face as he began rocking back and forth on his feet, "Oh, I didn't mean to stress you out more! I'm sorry! If it helps you, I just stressed myself out more too!"

"So many people, such a big building, out of reach, out of reach, so many people here to be heroes, out of reach," he mumbled quickly.

"Oh no! Did I break you?!" Iris said, tears comically pouring down her face as she frantically waved her arms around.

"Ford, my man!"

The boy stopped muttering while Iris froze with her hands up in mid-air upon hearing the voice. They turned to see another boy with voluptuously messy dark blue hair waving at them. Next to him was a brunette girl that they both had to do a double take at to make sure they were looking at a teenage girl rather than an adult lawyer. The boy jogged up to them while the brunette closely followed him.

"I'm glad I found you in this crowd. I was hoping to meet up with you before the exam started to say hello and wish you good luck and to make sure we sit next to each other during the briefing session before the exam starts," he said with an easy smile, "You sure are a lot taller than your pictures depict."

"Reed, we really need to head into the school. We will be considered late soon."

"Chill, we still have enough time, Katherine."

Iris watched as the blonde boy next to her seemed to fully relax upon the other boy's arrival, 'They must know each other then,' she thought.

"Ohhh, and who is this?" the dark-haired boy said, looking over at Iris.

"We haven't exchanged names yet. We were just talking about how big the building is and all the people here," Ford said, "But I'm glad you waited for me before heading into the exams. It's good knowing someone here to sit with and be in the exam with," he said, turning to look back at Iris, "I'm Fjord Gomain, but everyone just calls me Ford."

"And I'm Reed Victors."

"Katherine Johnson."

"Uh…Iris Blackthorn."

"There, now you know people too," Ford said with a smile.

Iris stared wide-eyed at the trio before her, the swirling feeling in her stomach slowly fading. She hadn't expected anyone to make her feel welcome, especially not at an exam where it was every man for himself. They all had the same goal right at that moment, and yet they had smiled at her and made her feel just a bit more comfortable being there.

She smiled softly in return, suddenly feeling much better about taking the exam.

"Yes, yes, we can make real, proper introductions later," Katherine said, instantly breaking the warm, happy feeling that had been created between them, "We have an exam to get to and I will not be late even before the school year starts."

Iris looked down at her phone to see the time. It was five minutes before they had to be in the auditorium for the exam, "She's right! We've gotta book it!"

"Let's go!" Reed said as the four of them started running towards the school, "I don't want to get chewed out by my aunt for being late, especially at the school she runs!"

As the group made their way inside, it hit Iris on what exactly Reed had just said, "Your aunt is the principal!?"

 **. : + : .**

"How do I look? Everything in place?"

Charlotte asked this as she turned around in front of the group of teachers before her. She had changed into her hero costume to welcome the examines and to explain how the exam would play out.

She was currently wearing fitted black pants that were tucked into thick-heeled, black boots. Her top half was dressed in what looked like a circus ringleader's outfit, being in colors of purple, black, and gold. A top hat with a thick purple band around it was perched on her head while she carried a thick black cane with a simple gold orb as its topper. Strapped on either hip were extendable batons.

"You look fine," Sorin answered, "You always get so worked up every time we do this for the entrance exams."

"I've gotta make a good first impression! Now are you sure I look fine?!"

"I've got you covered!" Chris said, always having agreed with Charlotte on making a first impression on the new students. He moved her top hat ever so slightly to the side while giving the tails of her ringmaster's coat a push outwards to make sure they were flashily displayed, "There we go!"

"Thank you!" she said with a grin, "Now then, are we all prepared to put on a good show?"

"That's usually your bit. Can't we just skip out this year? I'm hungry and tired after the fight I had yesterday," Sorin said, his droopy eyes giving away just how tired he was.

"No skipping! I want those kids to see all of you!"

"Fine. Let's just get this started already then."

"Alright, _Yashiru_ ," she said, still hating the fact that she was being forced to call him by his name, "Send us on up!"

Yashiru nodded with a smile before pressing the button that would send the group of teachers up to the main stage in front of the examines. He then took a seat to watch the performance that Charlotte was about to put on.

As the circular platform rose, fog began spilling out all around them. They heard the muttering of the teens in the large room fade as the lights went off. Once the platform came to a stop and locked into place, complete silence filled the room.

"Hello all," Charlotte began right before beams of light shone down on the group on stage, "And welcome to UENC!"

She let a wide smile spread across her face as she stood front and center, her hands on her cane that was placed directly in front of her. The teachers behind her all moved to either side of her so everyone could get a good look at them as well, fog still spilling around their feet.

Excited murmurs began to fill the room as the teenagers took in the sight of the pro-heroes before them.

"As I'm sure many you know, I am the Time Hero: Show Stopper," she said with a small bow, "I am the principal of this school, or more commonly known as the Guiding Light of UENC. I'm quite pleased to see so many of you here today, gunning for a place in my school! So let's get started, shall we?"

A sly smile appeared on her face as she took a step forward.

The room of kids smiled in return, excited to hear what they would have to do to get into the school. Though, an odd sensation passed through the entirety of the room as soon as Charlotte took a step forward. It felt like everything had stopped, but with the blink of an eye, the sensation was gone.

"Your exam will be taken in one of our training facilities designed to look like downtown Columbus."

Heads whipped back towards Charlotte, who was now standing at the top of the right-side steps of the auditorium. They had only blinked, and she had ended up on the other side of the room.

"That's badass," Gaila whispered.

"While I appreciate the compliment, no interruptions," Charlotte said, looking over towards the girl. She smiled upon recognizing who she was, "Now then, your main goal of this exam will be search and rescue."

There was a resounding echo of disappointment in the room.

"How are we supposed to show off our quirks if we can't battle anything?!"

"I said no interruptions!" Charlotte shouted, causing complete silence to envelope the room again, "As I said, your main goal will be search and rescue. You will need to find citizens in need of help and rescue them, but it is not simply who can find a citizen and bring them to the finish line the quickest. While we will be looking at how efficiently you can complete this task, there will be things in your way while you do it. So let's get to what exactly you will encounter in the exam."

She stepped forward again, causing the odd sensation of being stopped to fill the room again.

"There will be robots in the exam."

Heads whipped to the stairs to the left of the auditorium where Charlotte now stood.

"These robots have been designed to look like humans and to more or less act like them. If you attack them, they will defend themselves. If you hide from them, they will hunt you down. If you save the citizens from them, they will attack you. And there may just be a few that are out there to cause a little mayhem!"

"That's fine with me! I really need to punch something anyways!" Raios said, looking at Gaila, who sat next to him.

Another sly smile slipped across Charlotte's lips, "You think it will be that simple, do you?"

"Yeah, it's not like we have to hold back on them, right? How tough can they be? They're just robots," Raios answered.

The stopping sensation overcame the room again right before Charlotte appeared in front of Raios, causing him to jump back away from her.

"Underestimating your enemy like that will get you killed. You best remember that," she said, looking out at all the other examines, "You all should remember that. These aren't just some throwaway pieces of scrap metal you'll be facing. These are robots that have been altered and enhanced by our support team. And they have plenty of surprises hidden up their sleeves," she said, looking back down at Raios, "Got it?"

He nodded silently and quickly at her.

She grinned as she began walking back towards the stairs, "So then, you will each need to find a citizen to save. You will need to do this by whatever you think is necessary. Fight off the robots, find your citizen, and get them across the finish line. The finish line is where you will be starting your rescue mission. As soon as you cross that line with a citizen in hand, your exam will be over, so make every moment of it count. If after thirty minutes, you do not cross the finish line with a saved citizen, you will automatically fail the exam. Understand?"

Sounds of understanding and agreement echoed through the room.

"You will be graded at how efficiently you complete the task, how well you fought off the robots, and the condition of your citizen when you cross the finish line. So if you cross the line with half a body, that will also be an automatic fail. Half a body would be a dead person in the real world and cannot be considered saved. So think before you act once you have your citizen in your care."

Charlotte looked around the room then while she paused. She saw many determined faces in the crowd, but also a number of worried or doubtful faces. Though, it would only be through the exam that would tell them which of those faces would have the potential to become heroes.

"Remember that you all came here with a purpose. You all came here to become heroes. No matter the reason, whether it be for fame and glory, for recognition, or to prove something to yourselves, at the end of the day you are all here to be heroes. To help people. To stand for something greater than just yourselves. So dig deep and show us that you have the potential to become heroes! That you have the will and motivation to become part of something great! And that you're willing to fight for it until the very end!"

The feeling of excitement grew in the room, everyone sitting on the edge of their seats, barely being able to contain themselves. Everyone wanting to prove themselves right then and there.

"Show us something," Charlotte began as she took a step forward.

The odd sensation filled the room once again. It was the moment that Charlotte enjoyed seeing the most every year. As she walked down the steps of the time stopped room, she looked at all the excited faces of the examines. Every face filled with hope and desire at the chance to prove themselves, at the chance to become something every kid dreamed of being. They were the faces of heroes the world had yet to see, but ones she knew would become something great.

She came to stand in front of the teachers again, taking the stance she had started with when they appeared. She watched as she released her power and time began to flow again, enjoying the moment when heads whipped forward to look at her in surprise.

She smiled widely at the examines before her, "Magnificent!"

* * *

 **A/N:** And there we are! I hope you enjoyed it!

 **Credits**

 **Gaila Augusta – Dreadburner94**

 **Raios Homura – Death Obelisk**

So that was a fun chapter to write. I really enjoyed getting to introduce Gaila and Raios. They will be a fun pair throughout the story! So I hope they turned out well and you all like them. And then having Iris and Ford meet, GAH! I was so excited to be able to do that!

Anyways, the next chapter will be the actual exam! CHA! So that'll be exciting! I don't know how many people I will focus on in it, but I'm fairly certain it will include the six people that were focused on in the first two scenes of this chapter. If I get a chance to squeeze a few more people into it, then I will. I'll just have to see how it goes. But I hope you all like the search and rescue idea for the exam. I wanted to do something a bit different than straight up fighting, so I figured this was a good way to do it. It'll still include fighting, of course, but there will also have to be some thinking going on and making sure their citizen doesn't "die" once they have them.

Again, your reviews were wonderful! They give me life! Haha! But seriously, you all are just great! I love that you all love the story and I greatly enjoy seeing your feedback on things!

I will apologize now for any grammar or spelling mistakes. I did read over the chapter before posting it, but it's like stupid early in the morning and I'm tired, but most things should be fine.

I think that should be it for this time around!

Until next chapter!

Yours Truly,

MyDearWatson


	5. We Were Heroes Today!

**A/N:** CHA! A new chapter!

I don't own MHA!

Please enjoy!

* * *

 **Chapter 4: We Were Heroes Today!**

 **Columbus, Ohio**

Chaos.

That was the only word that Iris could use to describe what was going on around her. The exams hadn't even started, and yet mayhem had already begun to set in.

They had been guided to the starting line of the exam. The city was enclosed by high walls while they were left to stand in front of huge, metal doors that would open once the exam started. The examines didn't waste any time in pushing each other back and forth to stand at the front of the crowd, causing the people already at the front to be smashed against each other and the doors. Arguments quickly spread, and voices were rising to be heard over one another.

Iris side stepped a body that had been flung away from the fighting crowd, running her hands over her hair to try to keep it from spiking out.

'Don't freak out, don't freak out, don't freak out!' she thought.

Even with repeating that mantra, she still let out a squeak of fear as a large boy was pushed back into her. He snarled down at her before jumping back into the useless struggle. Her eyes darted around, trying to find any sight of the three teenagers that had spoken to her before the exam started. She had lost them early on once they had been left alone to wait for the doors to open and everyone made a mad dash for the front.

'How long are they planning to make us wait?' she thought, 'It's driving up everyone's anxiety!'

Her eyes widened at that thought. She looked over the crowd once more, and while seeing the majority of people fighting for the front, there were many examines that were hanging back from the struggle, looking calm and collected. The teachers wanted the anxiety to rise before opening the doors. It was a way to put pressure on them and test them under that pressure.

As Iris continued to look over the calmer crowd of people, her eyes fell on a silver-haired girl and a white-haired boy who seemed to be staring each other down. It seemed to be quite the challenge between the two as they hadn't bothered looking at the front doors or moving from their spots. If Iris looked hard enough, it almost appeared as if fire was rolling off both of them.

'Scary!' she thought as she quickly looked away from the pair when the tough looking girl glanced over at her. The hard gray eyes that looked like steel were enough to have her inching a bit away from them.

"Oi! Punk! Don't scuttle away!" the silver-haired girl shouted, stomping over towards Iris, "It's rude to stare at people, ya know!"

"No…no, I didn't mean anything by it!"

"Trying to get in the middle of our challenge? You got something to prove?!" the white-haired boy joined in.

"It wasn't like that! I swear!"

Iris was trying her best to get away from the duo, hoping to disappear into the struggling crowd. But she soon felt two solid hands fall onto her shoulders. She let out a frightened yelp as her hair shot out in spikes sharper than she had ever seen them. The spikes easily slid across the skin of the arms holding onto her, thin lines of red instantly appearing in their wake.

The pair looked down at the scratches on them before turning burning eyes back on Iris, "You're gonna pay for that," they growled.

"I'msosorryI'msosorryI'msosorry!" Iris said, her words coming out so fast that it was almost impossible to understand her. Panic and fear welled up in her and adding that on top of the nerves and doubt that were still floating around in her stomach, she finally lost the fight against the sickening feeling in her stomach that rose to her throat. Right there in front of two of the scariest kids she had ever seen, she vomited.

Disgust crossed the faces of the duo in front of her as they backed away from her.

It was then that the doors to the exam opened and people began pouring into the city.

"You're lucky it's the start of the exam. I'm sure we won't see each other again if you can't even keep it together before the start of the exam," the girl said before running for the doors.

"Don't get in our way in there," the boy added with a grunt before running after the girl.

Iris looked up to see everyone entering the city, even seeing a boy with what looked like a jetpack on boost himself into the air to get over the large crowd at the front. It seemed everyone was moving forward, everyone but her. Her legs felt stuck and what confidence she had to start with left her when her breakfast decided to erupt out of her stomach.

'The exam didn't even start yet and I already messed up,' she thought, tears starting to well, 'This isn't what a hero looks like. A hero doesn't throw up at the start of a mission. And a hero doesn't run away from people. I don't know why I thought I could do this. I'm not a hero! I'll never be a hero!'

"Don't give up just because some jerks pushed you around."

Iris looked up, having to blink a few times to clear her blurred vision of tears. She saw a boy with shining, curled blue hair staring down at her, his green eyes showing genuine concern for her. She then noticed that he was holding out a white handkerchief to her.

"Thanks," she said quietly as she took the cloth. She dabbed her eyes first before wiping it across her mouth. She stared down at the ground before quickly turning away from the bile in front of her, "That was embarrassing."

"Yes, but you didn't die from it, did you?" he asked, a smile across his face.

"No."

"Then forget about it and do what you came here to do."

'That's easier said than done,' she thought, but the bright smile he gave her made her feel motivated, like maybe she hadn't become a complete failure just yet.

"Thank you for the encouragement."

He then winked at her, his smile turning into an impish one, "Of course. Whatever I need to do to have a cute girl like you in my class."

Iris jumped back with a blush across her face, "Ex…excuse me?"

He began jogging off to enter the city, "The name's Eddie! I'm sure we'll see each other again soon in class. You can tell me your name then and then we can embark on a romantic adventure together!"

Iris took a moment to cool down after throwing up and having a boy flirt with her all within a five-minute timespan.

"I would get a move on, Miss Blackthorn," Charlie's voice boomed, "You've already lost five minutes!"

Iris jumped again, this time in panic, as she made a beeline for the opened doors. She ran through them to enter a scene filled with chaos again. People were running and jumping around all over the place. People were screaming, Iris assuming these were the citizens they needed to save, while other people were attacking with knives and even a few with guns.

'What the heck?!' she thought, 'It's like the whole city is under attack!'

She watched as examines held their own against the robots, streams of lasers, lightning, and other elements being slung through the air. Other kids ran straight for citizens, their bodies covered in rock, metal, and other sturdy materials that allowed them to bat away the attacking robots at ease. And there were those that took a more tactical route by taking to the air and hiding in wait, using shadows or their flying abilities to help them.

"Where do I even start?!" she shouted, trying to find a single citizen that she could help, "Maybe if I move further into the city, there will be people that haven't been helped yet."

Iris took a deep breath before running into the madness of the exam. She had to weave through several fights, ducking as arrows soared over her head. She came up from the duck to have to jump over a small hill in the road, someone having manipulated the earth underneath the blacktop. She came to a halt shortly after that, watching as a girl swung in front of her from what looked like plastic coming out of her wrists while two robots were following her.

"It's like an obstacle course within an exam," she mumbled as she continued her trek further into the city.

She eventually came to a street that was lined with colorful flags, all advertising different events going on. She looked up at the large brick and glass building, seeing it read 'Greater Columbus Convention Center.' She then heard a loud knocking, causing her to look up at a glass window covered bridge that connected the convention center to the parking garage next to it. In the middle of the bridge stood a family of four, the husband having been the one to knock on the window to get her attention. She could see his mouth moving to call for help from her. She looked up to see one of the robot thugs standing on top of the bridge, two of them inside the bridge on either side of the family, and another two standing outside, one on top of the convention center and the other on top of the parking garage.

'Five?!' she thought, 'I wanted to only deal with one if I had to, not five at once!'

Iris could feel the panic rise in her again, knowing she would be outmatched and there was no way she would be able to save the family. But then she made eye contact with the family again, seeing the desperation on their faces. Even though they were only robots, the school had made them appear so real, so very much in need of help.

" _Looks like Mjolnir has defeated another villain!"_

 _A seven-year-old Iris ran over to her mother's side at the kitchen table. She popped her head under her mother's arm, running her eyes across the article in the paper her mother held. Iris' eyes grew in fascination, matching the older woman's above her. There she saw a picture of a rather large man standing on top of a villain as he spoke with the authorities. A family was smiling in the background, having been the victims of the shop the villain had tried to steal from._

" _What's it say, mommy?"_

" _A villain tried to rob a family that owned a deli shop not too far from here, using the children as hostages," she explained as her eyes scanned over the article, "But Mjolnir was quickly on the scene and took down the villain and saved the family! No one was hurt, well, accept for the villain," she said, looking down at her daughter with a smile._

" _He's so cool! He's always looking out for families like us, right?"_

" _That's right!" her mother said, "He comes from a family that ran businesses like ours here in Chicago, so he's always patrolling areas like ours to protect hard working families!"_

" _You think I could be like that? Protecting families? I could protect our family!"_

" _Yes, you can," her mother said with a wide smile and bopping a finger playfully on her daughter's nose, "You would make a great hero! I can't wait to read about you in the paper just like Mjolnir!" she said with a grin and a laugh, causing Iris to smile brightly in return._

"I'm outmatched. I know I won't win. And this will probably cost me my spot in UENC," Iris said, looking at the five robots surrounding the family, "But if I won't fight for this family now, then there'd be no point getting into UENC anyway! This is what I want to do as a hero! Even if this is my only chance, even if this is where everything ends, even if this family isn't real, I want to show my mom just once that I fought to protect a family like ours!"

The robot's eyes standing on top of the bridge lit up at her declaration, its mouth twitching up into a smile. It pushed off the bridge, jumping down towards Iris with a steel baseball bat in its hands.

'You can do this, you can do this, you can do this!' Iris thought, watching the robot carefully.

She waited until it was almost on top of her, jumping to the side as it came down with the bat. It slammed the bat down onto the ground, cracking it in the process. It didn't give her much time to react as it landed on the ground and turned to swing the bat at her. She willed her spikes to work, creating a shield between her and the weapon. The bat hit her hair, and while it protected her body, it still sent her flying into the wall of the parking garage from the sheer force that the robot put behind the swing.

Her back slammed into the brick wall, causing her to let out a painful gasp as she slid down to the ground, "Just how much power do these things have?" she said, letting herself sit on the sidewalk for a moment, trying to desperately not think about how much pain she was already in.

Her eyes went wide as the baseball bat appeared next to her head, lodged into the wall. The robot was on her in seconds, standing above her with a wicked smile, one hand on the wall and one hand wrapping around the handle of the bat.

" _When is doubt, Rissy," her brother, Peter, said, "Roll up in a ball and act like a porcupine!"_

" _Yeah," her other brother, Jason, added, "Become a spike ball!"_

'Gotta love the little troublemakers,' she thought with a smile as she curled in on herself.

While she made sure that her hair completely covered her back, the robot above her yanked out the bat from the wall. She heard and felt pieces of the brick wall fall by her feet, knowing it would only be a matter of seconds until that bat would come down on her.

'Just like a porcupine!'

That thought raced through her mind as her hair spiked up all around her. She felt the thump of the baseball bat, but her hardened hair took most of the hit. She also knew one of her spikes shot through the robot's other arm, considering she could hear the crackle and pop of computer hardware. The robot let out an angry growl before pummeling her with the bat.

'I need to do something before that bat breaks my spikes!' she thought, feeling the arm with a spike through it still stuck that way, 'I can use that to my advantage!'

She rolled to her side, making sure to keep her spike side facing the robot. This movement also forced the robot to move, dragging it downwards. She continued rolling until she was laying on top of the robot and her spikes had pierced through several spots on its front. When she heard the bat clatter to the ground, she pushed herself to her feet, the robot still attached to her. She then spun on her feet until she had a fast pace going, releasing her spikes and sending the robot flying into the brick wall of the convention center. She kept her guard up and watched it, seeing it slide down along the wall and slump over, a few more electrical pops going off before it completely powered down.

Iris' eyes went wide at the sight, surprised she had managed to do any damage at all.

"I…I did it! I took it down!" she said with a large smile.

Though, her excitement was quickly dashed away as the two robots that had been standing on the roofs jumped down to stand on either side of her while she heard the family on the bridge scream. She looked up to see the two robots on the bridge with them begin closing in on them.

She stared in disbelief at the scene before her, 'I'm already tired from just the one robot and that thing was strong as hell! It was only by luck that I managed to catch it with a spike! How am I supposed to take out four more of them?!'

She glanced back and forth between the two robots down on the street with her, noticing that they were slowly circling her. It would only be a matter of time before they made an attack. And it would only be a matter of time before the robots on the bridge got to the family.

'I can't let that happen, but I also can't do this by myself!'

She watched as the robots circling her changed the direction of their feet to aim straight for her. She knew it then that they were about to charge her, and after they had her then the family would be next.

Her body shook, knowing what she was about to do would be useless. Everyone in this exam would be working for themselves. No one would hear her plea, and if they did, they would ignore her. No use helping someone who can't even help themselves. And it's not like helping her would help them in the exam. But still…she couldn't just give up on the family in front of her and it was the only option she had left to make sure this rescue would be a success.

"Help!" she shouted, doing her best to be heard above the chaos around her. The robots surrounding her moved in for an attack as soon as she started shouting. She turned her back to one of them to at least block against them, "Please! I need help! There's a family in trouble over here! Please!" she begged as she desperately tried to get her hair to spike.

'Not now!' she thought, irritated at her lack of control over her quirk, 'You were just working! Why act up now?!'

She continued trying to force her spiking to work, feeling her hair puff up and then deflate, "Help! People are in trouble! I need help!"

No one answered and with every step the robots took towards her and the family above her, she was certain that this was it. That she was about to get knocked out, the family wouldn't be saved, and she would fail the exam.

'There has to be at least one person out there that will answer me!' she thought before letting out the loudest shout she had made yet, "PLEASE! HELP!"

A beam of purple-black energy is what she saw before anything else. It landed in front of the robot directly in front of her, forcing it to step back. Though, the one behind her continued forward, landing a roundhouse kick on Iris' back. She had dropped her guard upon seeing the energy beam, so she received the full force of the kick. She was sent flying again, but before she could slam face first into the brick wall of the convention center, she felt a hand grab onto her arm and yank her backwards.

She looked up to see the tall blonde boy from earlier.

"Ford?" she said.

"At your service," he said with a grin as he ran a hand through his hair to push it out of his face, "You disappeared on us."

"I didn't mean to. There were just so many people and then everyone started fighting and I got cut off from you all," she explained, "Is it just you here?"

"Nope," he said, pointing up to the glass bridge, "Reed kept his word about sticking out the exam with me."

Iris looked up to see both Reed and Kathrine had made it up on top of the bridge, moving to stand right above the two robots inside it. She thought they were going to just break through it to get inside, but then Kathrine phased through the glass, landing on top of the robot and slamming it down to the floor. She smashed a foot into its face while she looked up at Reed, the brunette looking annoyed that the boy was taking longer than her.

Reed threw out his right hand, the tips of his fingers and thumb slowly turning a bright red. He wore a serious face as he began to speak, "This hand of mine glows with an awesome power! Its loud roar tells me to defeat you! Take this! My love! My anger! And all of my sorrow! Erupting...burning...FINGER!"

"Stop being a dork!" Katherine shouted at him, stomping her foot in the process and causing it to dig further into the robot's face, "This is not the time to be quoting some lame Gundam series!"

"Wow, you actually know it comes from a Gundam show. Your nerd knowledge is expanding!" Reed said, smirking down at her through the glass.

"Only because you make me watch those ridiculous shows!" she said with another stomp, "Now get in here already! You know you're the better fighter!"

"I think that robot is going through hell already," Reed said, feeling slightly bad for the robot under Katherine's heel.

"REED!"

"Okay, okay, geez," he said before touching his fingers to the glass. The glass began to melt underneath the hot temperature that his fingertips gave off. He quickly created a large circle, the separated glass slipping away and falling onto the robot under him. Reed quickly jumped inside the hole he made, slamming down onto the robot. He let the temperature in his right hand cool down, grabbing the robot's head with his left hand instead. He increased the temperature in his left fingertips and thumb, his hand easily melting through the metallic casing of the robot and the computer that made up its brain, instantly shutting it down.

Reed stood to move over to the robot under Katherine's feet, "I think you crushed its brain already."

"We are not taking any chances at this thing getting back up. Make sure to melt its brain too."

"So demanding," he said with an easy smile as he bent down to melt his fingers through its brain.

Though, Reed barely had time to dodge as a knife came swinging at him. The blade managed to slash across his cheek as he jumped back away from it, "Dammit!"

"I told you to quit messing around," Katherine said, "Things like this happen when you do not!"

"You can chew me out later," he said, watching as the robot pushed its way back up onto its feet, "I need you to help the family while I deal with the robot."

Katherine looked over at the family to see them staring at them in fear, the robot standing in between them, "Boost me back up to the roof of the bridge."

Reed nodded at her, easily lifting her up towards the ceiling. She concentrated on her quirk, feeling her arms phase through the top of it. She then pushed herself back up through ceiling, coming to stand on top of the bridge again. She let the disconnected feeling pass over her that she normally felt from using her quirk back to back. Once she felt right again, she made a beeline for the hole that Reed had made. She jumped down through it, looking over at the family.

"Follow me," she said in a short, clipped tone. The family nodded at her and began following her into the convention center.

The robot turned to try and stop them, but Reed slammed a foot into its back.

"I'm your opponent."

While Reed and Katherine were taking care of the robots and the family, Ford and Iris were left to deal with the two robots on the ground.

"So how are we going to deal with them?" Iris asked, her back up against Ford's while they each faced a robot.

"There was no time to plan for this. It's easier when I have time to plan. I don't know what everyone can do. I don't know how strong these robots are nor all the tricks they have up their sleeves. There was no time to plan for this!"

Iris could feel Ford rocking back into her, much like he had done earlier that day when they were both stressing out outside of the school; but this time Reed couldn't magically appear to calm him down and she couldn't afford to add more stress on top of what he was feeling already.

"Spiking!" she said much more loudly than she had intended.

"What?" Ford asked with a flinch, not liking the loud pitch of her voice, but at least it had brought him out of his panicked thoughts.

"That's my quirk – Spiking," she said, "I can harden my hair into sharp spikes, but I don't have the best control over it right now. Sometimes the spikes are sharp, sometimes they're blunt, and other times I can't get them to work at all," she explained, frowning at the last bit of her explanation, "What's yours?"

"Necromagic," he said, holding out his hands for her to see the backs of them. On them were black tattoos of a hexagonal arcane symbol, "I can use necrotic magic through these tattoos, so I can send out beams of necrotic energy. I can also hex people to make them weaker and give them bad luck, but it's not at a very high level yet."

"Ohhhh, that's so cool!" she said, a shine in her eyes at imagining all the uses for his quirk. She shook her head, knowing now wasn't the time to fantasize about other people's quirks, "Ok, well now we know what we can do. That helps, right?"

Ford glanced back at her, running a hand through his hair again to move it out of his eyes, "It does," he said, his mind already starting to formulate a few plans, "So your hair, it can withstand some heavy hits?"

"Yes, but it's not an all-powerful shield. If something hits hard enough or hits enough times, it could break or deflate."

"So it'll be a risk, but we'll have to chance it," he said, looking at the robots who were waiting for an opening to attack, 'We'll have to give them an opening…a fake out to draw them in,' he thought before looking back at Iris, "You be defense and I'll be offense."

Iris nodded at him, though she panicked when he jumped away from her towards a robot, "Wait! How can I defend you if you jump away from me?!"

She didn't need to wait long for an answer as Ford jumped back towards her when the robot in front of him charged in.

"You could have given me some warning first before faking them out!" she shouted as she worked to get her hair into spikes.

She was in luck as they puffed out into thick thorns. While not very sharp this time around, the hard bluntness of them would work well in defending them. She whipped her hair forward to cover Ford while the robot brought down a fist on him. After the hit, she quickly turned to block their back as the robot that had been facing her charged in.

"That would have given away the plan to these guys. All the surprise and tactical advantage would have been out the window," he said as her hair moved away to reveal his right hand aimed directly at the robot. He wasted no time in releasing a beam of purple-black energy at it, hitting it directly in the chest and slamming it against the wall of the convention center, "Now duck!"

Iris felt her body move on instinct after she had blocked the second robot that had come up behind them. As soon as she heard Ford's words, it was like her body melted as she slipped to perch on the balls of her feet. Ford rose above her to throw out a hand towards the robot, blasting it away like he had done to the first one.

"Nice!" Iris said, looking between the two robots, "That worked out really well!"

"Yeah, but looks like the blasts weren't strong enough," Ford noted, watching as both robots peeled themselves away from the brick walls and stumbled back onto their feet.

"But they're looking worse for wear," Iris said, "A couple more shots and they should be out permanently."

"Possibly, but they look like they're going to charge at the same time."

Iris saw that he was right. Both robots righted themselves and turned straight for them at the same time, "I've got this one, if you've got that one," she said, pointing between the two robots. She saw panic rise in Ford again, causing her to turn and look him straight in the eye with such determination that he couldn't focus on anything else, "We came here to be heroes, right? Then let's show them why they should pick us!"

With that declaration, Iris spun on her heel and ran towards the robot standing in front of the parking garage.

Ford watched her running form as her determination filled him, "She's right!" he said as he turned to face his own robot.

He sent out another shot of energy, but the robot jumped over it, having expected the attack this time. The robot fell towards him in a graceful arc, aiming a kick at him. Ford threw his right hand upwards to shoot at the robot. Though, it spun gracefully out of the way as it came down closer to Ford. He smiled at the robot's reaction, glad that his plan had worked. While keeping it distracted and focused on his front, it gave his left hand the freedom it needed. He pointed his left hand out to the side, releasing a consistent beam from that hand. It took more power and concentration to keep the beam going, but it payed off as the robot came towards him and he moved the beam to hit it in its side, sending it down the street.

"Phew! That took a lot of power," Ford said, looking down the street at the fallen robot. For a moment, Ford thought he had won against it, but it soon began to move again, "Oh, come on!"

The robot struggled to its feet, stopping for a moment to stare down Ford once it was standing again. It then began running towards Ford, but Kathrine coming out of the convention center wall caught its attention.

"Here!" she managed to shout, her tone still sounding short and clipped. She waved towards the robot, "Family! With me!"

The robot quickly turned towards her, forgetting all about Ford once it heard she had the family.

Katherine looked at Ford, throwing him a look that told him he better throw everything he had at the robot once she had it distracted. Once she received a nod from him, she turned her attention back to the robot. She continued egging it on, getting it to come closer and closer towards her. She waited until the very last second, building up the concentration she would need to phase again. Once the robot was practically on top of her, she moved back through the wall, disappearing out of sight again and leaving the robot to run into the wall.

When the robot had smashed itself against the wall, Ford took that as his cue to attack. He aimed both hands, pushing as much energy through them as he could. Two beams erupted from his hands and as they shot towards the robot, they combined to make one large beam. The robot barely had time to turn its head before the large beam hit it square in the back.

A large dust cloud soon covered the area where the robot had stood. Ford waited, keeping his guard up as he watched the dust settle. Once the air cleared, it revealed the robot laying on the ground with a gapping hole in its back. Above it on the wall was a burnt black spot.

"You're definitely down this time," Ford said with a wide smile.

While Ford dealt with his robot, Iris was busy with the one she had charged.

She knew that she wouldn't get lucky like she had with the first one she had faced off with. This robot had seen what had happened and it wouldn't be as careless as the first one. And her spikes weren't as sharp as they were when she was fighting the first robot.

'I'll have to take a different approach,' she thought as she eyed its legs, 'If I can knock it off balance…'

Iris decided to go with another fake out like Ford had done earlier, running at it with her arm cocked back like she was getting ready to punch it. The robot reacted the way she wanted, preparing to defend itself against a punch. When she was a few feet away from it, Iris changed course and dove for its feet instead, curling up into a ball to somersault her way through its legs.

Her trick had worked, hearing the robot clank against her hair as she tripped it up. She easily popped up from the flip, her eyes landing on the bat that the first robot had dropped. She picked it up, turning to swing it towards the robot. It rolled away from her before standing up to face her. It charged her again, thinking it could easily win against her when she was on her own.

Though, Iris put up a tough fight. When the robot moved in to attack, she would block it with her hard hair and then turn to swing the bat at it. This process continued until she heard a loud thump above her.

She spared a glance upwards to see Reed smashing the head of the robot he had been fighting against the glass, one of his hands melting through its head. He looked down at the same time to see her dealing with a robot. Once he pulled his hand out of the head of the robot he had just finished with, he nodded towards her and pointed down right under him. He then heated up the fingers of the hand he hadn't used against his robot and sunk them into the glass in front of him to create another circle.

Iris understood what he meant, pushing the robot forward with her blocking and swinging tactics until it was right under where Reed stood. All it took was a simple push from Reed and a large circle of glass was falling onto the robot. The thick glass easily smashed it, trapping it flat on the ground. Iris walked up to the robot and slammed the bat into its head, ensuring that it was down for the count.

Things went quiet once the last robot had been defeated. The sounds of other fights, destruction, and citizens needing to be saved seemed far off as the group took in the fact that they had taken out five of the robots on their own.

It was Reed's victorious laugh that broke the silence. He jumped through the hole he had made, landing on top of the crushed robot. He ran a hand through his messy hair as a wide grin spread across his face.

"Hell yeah! That's how you do it!"

His happiness and excitement rushed through Ford and Iris, causing them to join in on his smiling and laughing.

"Everyone was awesome!" Iris said, "How'd you manage to find me anyways?"

"We were looking for you since we lost you earlier," Reed answered, "But it was such a madhouse, so sorry about that."

"It was pretty crazy. I ran into these two kids that were really intense…" she said, trying to forget her embarrassing incident from the start of the exam, "But still, I can't believe you guys showed up to help me."

"You called out for help," Ford said, placing a hand on her shoulder, "We couldn't ignore that. It's what heroes do!"

Iris smiled in return, "Yeah, I guess it is."

"This way!"

The trio turned when they heard Katherine's voice, still sounding rather strained. They saw her guiding the family of four out towards them.

"You overused your quirk," Reed said, seeing her movements were a bit jarring rather than the smoothness she usually carried herself with.

"Worth it," she said, motioning to the safe family and the defeated robots.

"I suppose so," he said, his smirk returning, "Why don't we get this family to the finish line then?"

"Who will save who?" Ford asked.

"I think Kathrine and Iris should carry the kids," Reed said, looking at the small boy and girl that stood by their parents, "It's not that I think you two can't handle saving full grown adults, but for the situation we're in right now, it'll be much quicker and easier for you two to carry the children."

Katherine nodded, motioning the young girl of the family over towards her while Iris approached the little boy.

"I have little brothers that are about your age," she said with a soft smile, "I take care of them a lot, so will you let me take care of you for a bit?"

The little boy looked up to his mother, the woman smiling at him and nodding. He then made his way over to Iris with his own smile, taking her hand and allowing her to pick him up.

"Madam?" Reed said, holding out his hand towards the mother of the family.

She took his hand with a laugh, leaving the husband to Ford, which worked out well since he was the tallest and could pick up the husband the easiest if needed.

"Looks like we're all set then," Reed said, "Let's head to the finish line."

"I think you're forgetting someone."

The high-pitched voice stopped everyone in their tracks. They all turned to look down the street passed the convention center to see a little girl with pigtails and a large sucker in one hand walking towards them.

"Does she need rescuing too?" Iris asked, worried that the little girl had been left out in the chaos all alone. While they only needed to rescue one person each, it didn't feel right to her to just leave someone, especially a child, out amid the fighting.

Reed's eyes went wide in fear upon seeing the girl, "Remember my aunt's words from the explanation earlier?"

"And there may just be a few that are out there to cause a little mayhem!" Katherine repeated Charlie's words, finally being able to speak a bit better, albeit with a straining in her voice still.

"Exactly," Reed said, "Look at how clean and unafraid she looks."

Iris and Ford noticed then that there wasn't a speck of dirt on the girl and she looked too happy and calm to be in need of rescue.

"That's no little girl in need of saving. That thing is a nightmare in disguise!" he said just as the little girl's eyes lit up in a bright red color, "I can hear my aunt's manic laughter from here! That thing is on a whole other level than the robots we just took out!"

"Then what do we do?!" Ford asked, feeling his stress level rising again.

"Run like hell!"

With Reed's shout echoing in their minds, they each picked up their citizen and made a run for it.

The little girl's arms opened up, six heat-seeking missiles being shot out from them. The red and white weapons appeared small, but when the first one hit another examinee that they were passing, it was clear that the missiles were no joke. They had expected a large explosion, and while there was a flash of light when it hit the examinee, the outcome of the missile was far from what they had expected. When the flash of light had faded, it revealed the examinee covered in a thick, blue substance.

"Help!" the examinee called out to them.

Iris was about to stop to help the examinee, but Reed stopped her when he saw her start to turn towards them.

"Leave them!" he shouted, "You touch that blue stuff and you'll be stuck too and everything you've done up until now will all have been for nothing!"

Iris realized that he was right. The examinee was stuck in the blue substance. It was an extra sticky material that made the examinee even more stuck the more they moved.

"Sorry!" Iris called out to them as she followed the other three passed the stuck examinee.

The other five missiles continued following them into the city while even more missiles were in the thick of everything. It seemed that the little girl wasn't the only special robot to have been released. Missiles were flying everywhere. Some had the sticky blue substance in them while others were filled with black smoke that had paralyzing affects, some had foul smelling orange liquid that easily knocked people unconscious, and others were filled with red powder that put people into a happily dazed stupor. The battlefield had become a rainbow of nightmares that the group now had to run through if they wanted to pass the exam.

"All right! Let's do this!" Reed shouted, almost seeming excited by the challenge.

"Are you crazy?! We'll never make it through all that!" Iris said.

"He basically is an idiot." Kathrine huffed.

Reed let out another victorious laugh before turning to look at his friends, "In the words of the great Haruko Haruhara – It takes an idiot to do cool things. That's why it's cool!"

Ford and Iris stared at him with wide, shining eyes, impressed by the quote, but Katherine knew better.

"You really are an idiot!" she shouted, "Now is not the time to be quoting Fooly Cooly!"

"Hey, you know the anime!" Reed said with wide grin.

"Well…it is a rather good one…" she admitted before shaking her head and wearing a serious face again, "That is not the point! This is not the time to be quoting ridiculous anime!"

"But you just said you liked it!" Reed said.

"That does not make it any less ridiculous!" she retorted, "Now, are you going to be the cool idiot that leads us into battle or not?!"

"I will do it!" he said, striking a pose.

"Then get a move on!"

"Into the rainbow battle we go! Just follow me!"

The group jumped right into the colorful chaos, following Reed's every move. They dipped and weaved through fights still going on while ducking, jumping, and rolling under the missiles flying everywhere. It was easier to get by the missiles in the middle of the fighting since there were so many people around, making it hard for the heat-seeking missiles to actually target a single person. Some people had taken to the rooftops to bypass the mess in the middle of the city, but they had been taken out by missiles since they were easier to target outside of the mess.

"I can see the finish line!" Iris shouted so they could all hear her.

"Keep going!" Reed said, urging them to keep their pace up and to keep their sights set on the finish line, "Jump!" he shouted, jumping over the hill of raised pavement Iris had to jump over earlier when she first entered the exam.

They all jumped together, landing at the same time and taking off for the finish line that was in front of them. All of them wore smiles as they crossed the finish line together. They set down their citizens, who thanked them for rescuing them before walking off towards the area designated for the saved citizens.

The group then turned back to each other, each of them still wearing smiles.

"We did it!" Iris said.

"That ending did turn out cool," Ford said.

"I suppose it was a bit…cool," Katherine added.

Reed stuck his hand out in the middle of the group, "No matter what anyone says, we were heroes today!"

Ford and Katherine quickly followed suit, setting their hands on top of Reed's. They looked to Iris, who set her hand on top last.

"Yeah," she said with a steady smile.

"But we're definitely all going to see each other again soon! Be ready to welcome Columbus, Ohio as your new home! And get ready to become some damn awesome heroes!"

"Yeah!" the other three answered.

Iris felt genuinely and completely happy with herself. She had made it through the exam before time was up with a citizen completely intact. And she had met some great people along the way. She had done what she set out to do – save a family like her own. No matter what happened now, no matter if she didn't make it into UENC, no matter if she was never able to become a hero, like Reed had said, she was a hero today.

* * *

 **A/N:** And there we are! I hope you enjoyed it!

 **Credits**

 **Edward 'Eddie' Evans – Piece of Sheet**

So updating this took me a bit longer than I had planned, so sorry about that. I was training for two weeks in a new area of my job, and then a game night, Easter, and my birthday happened the week after training, so a lot going on. Plus, this chapter turned out much longer than I had originally planned, which is not a bad thing, lol. Things should be back to normal with more regular updates, especially since I got to plan out more stuff these past few weeks.

Anyways, I had so much fun with this chapter! I enjoyed getting into Iris's character this chapter with how she was feeling about everything. And I greatly enjoyed Reed's nerdy-ness this chapter. I'm still cracking myself up over the G Gundam quote, haha! So I hope you all enjoyed it as much as I did. I had originally planned to show off Gaila and Raios in this chapter as well, but I figured you all would know they were shoe-ins for the exam and will rank fairly high in the exam, that and fitting them into the chapter from a fighting aspect didn't seem to fit the flow of things once I started to get towards the end of things. You'll get to see them fight soon enough anyways, lol.

I know Eddie's entrance scene in this chapter was short, but there will be more from him soon too.

As always, thank you all for your reviews! They were super great and I loved reading them all! I'm really happy to see you all enjoying the story and everything! So thank you!

That should be it for now!

Until next update!

Yours Truly,

MyDearWatson


	6. In the Pouring Rain

**A/N:** Boom! A new chapter!

I don't own MHA!

Please enjoy!

* * *

 **Chapter 5: In the Pouring Rain**

 **Columbus, Ohio**

It didn't take Gaila long to forget about the girl who had puked in front of her, not when she had the exam set before her and not when the annoying punk was still trailing her. She did her best to ignore him when she entered the replicated city, letting excitement build up in her rather than the irritation she had been feeling all morning.

" _Show us something magnificent!"_

Show Stopper's words echoed through her, causing a wide grin to spread across her face, "You'll see something magnificent all right."

The examinees came to stop, Gaila appearing confused by their sudden stop until she peered over the line of teens. She could see a long row of what she assumed to be the robots Show Stopper had been talking about standing before them. Several of the kids around her appeared hesitant, slowly bringing back the irritation she had previously been feeling.

"Out of my way!" she snapped, causing the people around her to jump. They turned to look back at her, moving apart to create a pathway for her when they saw the scowl she wore. She began making her way to the front of the pack, Raios making his way through the crowd right behind her.

"You're just gonna charge in there? You don't even know what they can do yet!"

Gaila's eye twitched at the questions, glaring back at the examinees, "I didn't come here to waste my chance to get into this school! And there will be villains you'll have to face where you don't know what they can do! What will you do then?! Cower in fear just like you're doing now?!"

The crowd looked away in embarrassment.

"Well that sure as shit ain't me!" she shouted, sparks of red traveling up along her pylons and popping in the air, "UENC is going to see something magnificent and it's going to come from me first!"

She turned back to the robots in front of her, seeing one of them grinning widely at her. She marked it as her first target, grinning back right at it. In that instant, red lightning ran up along her pylons, traveling down across her body. She focused the lightning down towards her feet, her black boots digging into the ground, preparing to spring towards the robot.

"If you don't have the same level of magnificence!" she said, the lightning exploding at her feet. Her boost in speed had her soaring straight for the grinning robot as she pulled back her right fist, a crackling red cloud covering it.

The robot went to jump up away from her, but she was quicker as she grabbed onto its pant leg, letting out a loud shout as she pulled it back down to the ground and slamming it on its back. She wasted no time in bringing down her right fist into its face. Its head exploded into pieces while the lightning traveled down through its body, burning and breaking it in the process.

Gaila turned to look back at the examines, her eyes lit like molten steel, "Then you better fucking leave right now!"

The eyes of the teens before her lit up at her declaration and determination, the hesitation washed away as they began to move forward against the robots.

A rush of wind had Gaila's hair flying around her face. She looked to her right to see Raios taking on two robots. He swept a hand to the side, sending out a huge gush of wind right at them. The robots attempted to stand against the pressure, but they didn't last long when Raios did the same motion with his other than, blasting both robots up and away from him.

He then turned to Gaila with a smirk, "Looks like I've got two robots to your one."

"Tch, like that'll last long. And I got the first attack in."

"That's not gonna be special when I'll be the one taking out more robots."

Gaila's eyes narrowed as sparks of red flew up off her pylons again. Raios only blinked once before she was suddenly beside him. Pops of electricity and the crunching of metal could be heard right behind him, Gaila's right arm stretched out next to his ear. A single streak of red traveled up along it, frying whatever she had her hand lodged into behind him.

"Keep being stupid like that and you'll get yourself killed," she said as she yanked her arm backwards, ripping out computer chips in the process. She stopped to show those computer chips to Raios, practically shoving them in his face as she crushed them in her fist, "I won't be saving your ass again."

With that, she dropped the crushed chips before turning on her heel and running off.

Raios looked behind him to see a defeated robot, one that had a knife in its hand that had been aimed at his back previously.

"Like I asked for your help," he mumbled before lifting himself up in the air with his quirk and taking off after Gaila. He wasn't about to let her show him up like that.

Gaila could hear the punk's wind before she saw him show up right next her, but she ignored him as she searched for citizens to be rescued. She heard screams above her, her head whipping up to see a few people stuck in a tall building that was on fire. She looked around her to see if there was anything to help her get up to the fifth story floor they were stuck on. She saw a convenience store next to the building and a plan quickly formulated in her head.

She split away from Raios, jumping onto a car and then using her lightning to give her a boost in power. She was easily launched into the air and moved to land on top of the convenience store. She moved to the far end of the roof to give her some running space. She began sprinting across the roof, jumping from the edge with another power boost to make it over to the building the people were stuck in with Raios making his way up towards them with his wind right under her.

Before either of them reached the window the people were at, a flash of shining blue hair appeared. A teenage boy had jumped onto Raios, letting him lift him up far enough for him to jump from Raios' shoulders and onto Gaila's back. He grinned as he climbed his way onto her shoulders and jumped again, landing on the ledge of the window on the fifth floor. This pushed both Raios and Gaila down to the third and fourth floor ledges respectively, both glaring up to see who had gotten in their way.

"Thanks for the lift," the boy said, saluting down at them playfully. He then looked to the three people at the window, "The name's Eddie and I'm here to rescue you!"

The people nodded and thanked him.

"Now then, I'll need to concentrate real hard for a moment, so please no panicking or wiggling about while I help."

He received more nods in reply.

"You loser, those are my citizens to save!" Gaila shouted, shaking her fist up at him.

"And what the hell was that about using us to get to them?!" Raios added in, not happy about being used as a stepping stone.

"Yes, you were both very helpful to my endeavor! As a token of my gratitude, I will allow you both to have one of these citizens to save once I've gotten them down to safety!" he said before turning his full attention on Gaila, "And you could let me take you out on a date as well!"

"Excuse me?!"

Eddie only grinned and winked at her in reply before turning back to the people in the window, "Now then, are we all ready to go?"

Once he received nod from them, he closed his eyes and let out a breath to calm himself. As soon as he opened his eyes back up, his concentration and quirk were in full force. The three people in the window began to float up and out of the window.

"A telekinesis ability?" Gaila said, not having seen one up close and personal before, "It's pretty impressive that he can lift all of them at once already."

As she said this, something warm dripped down onto her forehead. She wiped her fingers across the liquid, seeing red cover them, "Blood?" she said, looking back up at Eddie. It was then she saw blood leaking out of his nose and the deeply concentrated look on his face, easily seen by the vein ticking at his forehead, "Are you stupid?! You're gonna hurt yourself lifting all of them like that! Just do them one at a time!"

"The fire is spreading too quickly," Eddie managed to say through gnashed teeth, "There wouldn't be time to save them one at a time."

"You should have left the heavy lifting to us!" Raios shouted.

"Then who would stop the robots?"

Gaila and Raios looked up when Eddie motioned his head upwards. They saw a large group of robots climbing down towards them, a few of them with guns in their hands. One of them pointed a gun at Eddie and pulled the trigger without thinking.

"I don't think so, asshole!" Raios said as he punched his fist forward towards Eddie. A whirlwind was created, pushing Eddie out of the way just in time. The bullet flew past him and into the sidewalk below. Though, while the whirlwind had saved Eddie and continued to hold him up in mid-air, it had interrupted Eddie's concentration. The screams of the citizens falling filled the air, and for a moment Raios thought that their exam might have ended right then.

Luckily, Eddie had gathered his thoughts quick enough to catch them before they hit the ground. A few feet separated the citizens from the concrete.

Eddie let out a relieved sigh before looking over at Raios, even more blood pouring out of his nose now, "Think before you act!"

"You're fucking welcome," Raios answered with a roll of his eyes as he lowered Eddie to the ground with his quirk. Eddie landed on the ground the same time as the citizens, allowing him to release his quirk and wipe away some of the blood from his face, "Watch over them while we handle the robots."

Raios didn't bother waiting for confirmation from the teen as he turned back to the robots above him. He opened his mouth to say something to Gaila, but quickly shut it upon seeing the girl already moving in on the robots.

Gaila used her lightning to boost her way up from ledge to ledge, making her way to the roof of the building they were on. She shocked a few of the robots along the way to ensure that they would be angry enough to follow her. She made it to the roof, landing in the center of it and turning to face the robots that would soon appear in front of her.

"This is it. I can do this!" she said, a proud smile appearing on her face, "This is where I begin my climb of Gold Caesar's legacy! And I'll surpass it and make it my own! Just you wait and see…dad."

It was then the robots began climbing onto the roof, not wasting any time charging for Gaila.

"Bring it, you losers!" she shouted, her pylons charging up with red lighting. The lightning sparked and popped down along her arms and hands, making sure to keep them coated in it as she began fighting the robots.

She smashed a fist into a face, easily pulling out its chips like she had done to the one she saved Raios from earlier. She grabbed onto the next one that lunged at her, using the momentum to swing on her heels and throw it away from her. It popped with lighting as it flew across the roof, but it still managed to get back to its feet after its rough landing.

The next two robots came at her at the same time, thinking they could get the better of her together. Gaila didn't hesitate or bat an eye at the double attack. She simply smashed a boot into the face of one of the robots while she slammed an elbow back into the other, electrocuting it in the process. She then replaced her boot with an electrical fist on the first robot, releasing a large bolt into it and frying it instantly.

The robots stopped charging in then, knowing that Gaila had the advantage when it came to hand to hand combat, especially against bodies that were weak to electrical attacks. Instead, they all stood back away from her and pulled out guns on her.

'Shit, shit, shit!' she thought, 'They learn while fighting.'

She thought about what she could do next. She could charge forward to take one of them head on and move around to take them all out in the same fashion, but those guns would stop her early on. She might be able to get one, maybe two, if she was quick enough, but not all of them. She could try to take them all out here with a large surge of lightning, but there was no guarantee if she could get them all in that one hit and a move like that would leave her weak.

"Dammit!" she said as she got into a position to charge them. She decided she'd have better luck moving in to fight them in close quarters rather than leaving herself weak after an all-out attack.

Though, before she was able to put her plan in action, a mop of white hair blocked her view of the robots. Gunshots and rushing wind filled Gaila's ears, making it hard to concentrate on the fight before her. Once she had her wits about her again, she looked at Raios first, expecting there to be bleeding bullet holes filling him; but there was nothing on him, not even a scratch. She then realized that he had used the wind to blow away the bullets.

"Now we're even," he said, glancing back at her, "Can you let off a burst of that lightning or what?"

Gaila narrowed her eyes at him again. She didn't want to tell him all about her quirk. She didn't want him knowing her strengths and weaknesses. It didn't feel right telling someone that information, but they were also in a situation that required a bit more power than she had expected.

"Yes," she said, deciding that's all he really needed to know.

"Good," he said, swinging both arms across his body.

This created a cyclone that started of small, but it continued growing the more wind he added to it. With the last gush of air he sent out, he pushed it towards the group of robots. They were easily swept into the cyclone, their bodies spinning wildly in mid-air.

"Now electrify that cyclone!" he shouted over the rushing air.

"I can't control where the lightning goes!"

"Well you better fucking learn how right now!"

"Dammit!" she shouted as she ran for the cyclone. She wasn't about to electrify him in the process, no matter how much he annoyed her. He wasn't her target, "You better fucking catch me when I'm done!"

Once she got as close as she could without being taken in by the twisting wind, she built up her power through her pylons. Streams of red lightning aggressively popped and licked up into the air.

"Here's you fucking magnificence! Just like Gold Caesar!" she shouted before releasing eight huge bursts of lighting, the bursts coming from each pylon.

The red streaks danced up into the air, quickly connecting with the cyclone. The twisting air now had thick smears of red lighting running through it. And for a moment, the pair simply took in how beautiful the combined attack appeared. Though, they were soon brought back to reality when angry pops of electricity filled the spinning air. Their combined attack was working, the cyclone keeping the robots from making any sort of attack while the lightning made large amounts of damage.

Raios took that moment to run and grab Gaila by the waist before she was pulled up into the air. He jumped off the building with her, creating another cyclone around his free hand to push them away from the lighting cyclone and to the ground.

"That should be enough," Raios said when their feet touched the ground. He snapped his fingers and instantly the twisting air above them disappeared. Streaks of red littered the sky for a moment afterwards before completely dissipating. The robots then fell from the sky, landing hard on the ground, small sparks of red still traveling across their bodies.

"Looks like you took them all out," Eddie said, poking a robot with his shoe. It stayed unmoving on the ground, "You okay?" he asked, looking at a worn out Gaila.

She quickly pulled away from Raios, not liking appearing weak in front of people. She stood up straight and fixed her hair back into place, "I'm fine. You keep the citizens safe?"

Eddie watched Gaila a moment longer, knowing she was putting up a tough front. He left the subject alone though and put on a grin, "Of course," he said, motioning towards the three people behind him, "Those robots were solely focused on the two of you, so we had a pretty easy time about it down here."

"Then let's head back to the finish line," Raios said, moving over to claim one of the citizens as his own.

The other two followed suit, running towards the finish line they had started at only ten minutes before.

'Hope you were watching, dad,' Gaila thought, looking up at the sky, 'Hope you got to see me get into the same school where it all started for you.'

 **. : + : .**

 **Chicago, Illinois**

Rain pelted down in sheets, creating a wet and hazy atmosphere outside.

Iris felt that it fit her mood currently as it had been a week since the entrance exams and she had not received any sort of letter from UENC. While she knew it would take a week at least to get a letter of some fashion from the school, it didn't help ease the tension she felt.

She had jazz music playing, the smooth music mixing in with the rain. She was surprised that she hadn't fallen asleep to the mix of the sounds, but she hadn't been sleeping all that well since the exams. Instead, she filled much of her restless time with baking, painting, drawing, and reading old news articles on heroes. Iris knew that it was probably a bad idea to read about heroes, considering she was waiting to find out if she was good enough to be one or not, but she found a small comfort in them; especially the ones her mother had cataloged.

She was currently flipping through one of the last albums her mother had put together before she had passed away. She came to a sudden stop though when she came across the Mjolnir article she had thought back to during the exams.

" _You think I could be like that? Protecting families? I could protect our family!"_

" _Yes, you can. You would make a great hero! I can't wait to read about you in the paper just like Mjolnir!"_

"I don't know if you'll be reading about me," she said with a sigh.

Iris thought back to the exam again, feeling like she could have done much better. Reed's words at the end of the exam and completing the exam had left her feeling happy and successful for a day before feelings of doubt began to settle back in. She hadn't done much in the exam to show what she could do. She probably wouldn't even have passed the exam without the help of Reed and the others. What did that show UENC? Why would they choose someone like her? Why would they choose someone that couldn't even hold their own in a controlled fight?

She slammed the album shut with a huff. She scrunched up on her bed, wrapping her arms around her legs while banging her head against her knees.

"I can't handle the stress of waiting," she mumbled, "It'd be easier if they just pulled the band-aid off and told me I didn't make it in already."

There was a soft knock on her door, causing her head to pop up to see a woman smiling at her.

"Lilah?" Iris questioned, "Are dad and the boys home already?"

"No. I finished my lesson planning early and thought I'd come over early today. Your dad told me he'd be a bit longer with the boys and their shopping."

Iris nodded before noticing the woman was still smiling at her, "Did something good happen today?"

"Well, I decided to check the mail before coming in and I happened to find something interesting in it."

Iris' eyes widened before they made contact with an envelope in her hand, "Is it…?"

"It is," Lilah said as she walked towards Iris, "And it feels rather heavy," she said as she placed the envelope into Iris' hands, "My guess is that's a good sign."

Iris' hands tightened over the edges of the snow-white envelope with black loopy writing on the front of it. She read her name over and over and over again, afraid that if she were to look away from it, it would disappear from her hands or suddenly have someone else's name on it.

Lilah placed a hand on top on her head, "Take your time opening it. You only get this moment once, yeah?" she said with another warm smile, "I'm not sure what your mother would say to you right now, but I think you should have more faith in yourself, Iris. I know you're going to make a wonderful hero. And your father and I will be waiting to read all about you in the papers."

Iris swallowed the tight lump in her throat as she nodded her head again.

"I'll leave you to it then," Lilah said as she began to move out of the room, "I told your father I'd start preparing dinner before he got home with the boys. I'll be making your favorite too!"

Iris vaguely heard her exit the room, her focus still fully on the envelope in her hands. She had been clutching it so tightly that she was surprised that she hadn't torn off one of the edges yet. Her light purple eyes stayed glued on the paper for what felt like eternity to her before she finally flipped it over to open it.

She pulled out a thick packet of papers folded over twice and a return envelope already stamped and ready to go. She slowly unfolded the papers, closing her eyes and taking a deep breath before her eyes landed on a handwritten letter. It had the same loopy appearance as the writing on the front of the envelope.

 _Miss Blackthorn,_

 _Let me first thank you for choosing to take the exam for The United East North Central Hero Academy of America. It was an honor that you chose my school to test for and that you would like my school to teach you._

'So far so good,' Iris thought.

 _Now onto the purpose of this letter – your exam and whether or not you will be joining the ranks of my school._

 _You had a slow start to the exam as I even had to give you a warning about wasting time. This did not look good towards your end score. A hero cannot hesitate. A hero cannot let their emotions and someone's crude words throw them off course. You were, of course, docked points for this._

Iris bit her lip hard at this. She hadn't even thought about her wasting those first five minutes. She hadn't even thought they would count against her like this.

 _You also took on much more than you could handle when you eventually came across civilians to save. You faced five villains, and after facing one of them, it was apparent you were going to lose. You figured this out just as we did as observers. A hero must also know their limits. While a hero must do all they can in these situations, they must not overburden themselves and become useless to those in need. You were, again, docked points for this._

'Can't they just say I didn't make it already?' she thought, irritation and defeat filling her mind and heart, 'Stringing it out like this is horrible!'

 _But-_

'BUT?!'

 _But you did call out for help when you needed it. You figured out your limits, and instead of leaving those civilians to fend for themselves just because they were not real like many others had, you stood your ground and called for help. A good hero saves people, even if it means they have to wreck their body and mind to do so. But a great hero knows how far they can push themselves before reaching out for help. Do not think that calling out for help made you weak. It made you stronger because you had people to back you up. You had people to be there to throw the next punch when you could not. You had people there to rely on and to execute a plan where everyone was saved, heroes included._

 _The teamwork you showed was magnificent! There were very few examinees that showed this trait and you were one of the wonderful few! Because of this and the abilities we saw of your quirk, you are accepted into The United East North Central Academy of America! We believe you have the potential to be a great hero and we want to help guide you there!_

 _The next page has instructions on what you will need to do before starting school. Please fill out the necessary information and send it back in the return envelope we have provided._

 _I am looking forward to seeing you at my school._

 _Welcome to UENC!_

 _Yours truly,_

 _Charlotte A. Victors_

Iris stared at the 'Welcome to UENC!' for several minutes, not believing what it said. She then read over the letter over and over again until the words were practically burning in her brain.

She, Iris Blackthorn, had made it into UENC?! It had to be a dream!

She pinched herself a few times to make sure she really wasn't dreaming. After the last pinch her eyes saw the 'Welcome to UENC!' again and then her body was moving on its own.

She grabbed the acceptance letter, leaving behind the rest of the papers that had been sent to her, and took off out of her room.

Lilah saw the teen bolt from her room towards the front door, and before she could say anything to her, Iris threw open the door. Her father and her brothers were on the other side of the door, but she ignored them too and ran straight through them, also ignoring the fact that she was barefoot and had no umbrella and it was still pouring rain.

Her father looked back to Lilah in confusion, having to usher the boys inside before they ran off into the rain after their sister.

"I think it's good news, Malcom," Lilah said with a smile, handing him a large umbrella, "You know where she's going."

He smiled at her in return with a nod, "Please watch the boys while I'm gone. We should be back soon."

"Take your time," she said with a wave before turning her attention to the twins.

While her father prepared to leave, Iris had sprinted through town. She knew exactly where she was going and the fastest way to get there. As her feet slammed against wet concrete, Iris thought it might have been a horrible idea to fly out of the house without shoes, but it was too late now.

She was soon at a large plot of land that was surrounded by a large, black iron fencing, the front gates still being open for the day. She ran straight through those gates, maneuvering through tombstones on the way to one very special one. It was straight towards the back and to the right that a slab of white marble came into vision. Two marble vases were attached to either side of it. They were usually full of flowers, but the heavy rain had flood them and washed away any flowers that had been in them. On the front of the perfectly cut marble was the name 'Susan Blackthorn – Loving Wife. Devoted Mother. The Better Baker. And Hero Enthusiast.'

Iris stood in front of that slab that told the world who was there in five small ways that Iris still thought did not do her mother enough justice. She was more than the words carved into the marble. She had been her whole world. She had been the one to ignite her love of heroes. She had been the first one to believe she could become a hero. She had been so much more than those words on her gravestone. She had been her…

"Mom."

Upon greeting her, Iris burst into tears. At first, she tried to wipe away the tears, but it was a losing battle at the rate they were falling and the rain still pouring around her. She knew her face was becoming puffy and red from crying and her hair and clothes were sticking to her and her feet were covered in mud. She knew she looked like a mess in front of her mother and that she couldn't even get a word out of why she had even come for a visit. All she could do was cry and clench the acceptance letter to her chest.

"I…I did it!" she managed to say in between sobs, "I got in!"

She then placed the letter on top of the gravestone, the paper instantly sticking to it and the ink of the writing becoming runny and smudged from the rain. But Iris didn't care. She knew her mother would know what it said. She pictured her mother standing behind the gravestone, smiling at her in pride. She could even see her mother's lips move to speak to her, but her father's voice filled the air.

"That's my girl."

The image of her mother vanished as she turned to see her father standing beside her. Rain was no longer falling on top of her, her eyes glancing up to see that a large umbrella covered them. She attempted to wipe her tears away again, but they kept running down her face and sobs kept escaping.

Malcom pulled his daughter towards him in a hug, Iris instantly wrapping her arms around him and burying her face into his chest. His eyes watered a bit as he looked down at his daughter, "She would be so proud of you."

Iris only cried harder and held onto him tighter in response. Malcom chuckled a little as he patted her head and turned his teary eyes towards the gravestone.

'I'll add stories about Iris to your albums soon,' he thought, knowing Susan would be watching over them in that moment.

 **. : + : .**

 **Chicago, Illinois**

Marina Augusta stared at her daughter with an unamused look, running a hand through her red hair to push it out of her face.

"You've been staring at that thing all day," she said with a sigh and poking her daughter in the cheek, "Open it already."

Gaila swiped at the hand that had poked her with an irritated look on her face, "I already know what it says."

"And what would that be?"

"That I have been accepted into UENC."

"So then what's the hold up? I don't have much longer before I need to be back at the office and if you were accepted, I'd like to go with you to see your father."

Gaila let out a huff. What was taking her so long? It wasn't like her to wait and beat around the bush like this. She was always quick to make a decision and she never hesitated. But this stupid, ridiculous envelope with loopy handwriting on it was making her question herself!

'What the hell?!' she thought, practically glaring at the envelope.

She had been feeling perfectly fine and confident all week, but now that the answer was literally sitting in her hands, she was…well…nervous. She had worked so hard and prepared so much for the exam. She had put everything into getting there…to the place her father had gone to school. And she felt like her exam had gone, for lack of a better term, magnificently. So what was the problem?! Was it because she had to share the limelight with two other examinees? Was it because she hadn't saved the civilians on her own? Was it because she hadn't been able to show them everything she was in that one thirty-minute moment?

"Dammit! Those stupid morons!" she shouted, thinking back to Raios and Eddie, "I know I got in unlike those punks!" she said, finally ripping the envelope open.

Marina only sighed at her daughter's antics, but didn't say anything about them. She had at least opened the envelope now.

Gaila unfolded the papers, setting aside the return envelope, and began reading the handwritten letter on the front of the stack of papers.

 _Miss Augusta,_

 _Let me first thank you for choosing to take the exam for The United East North Central Hero Academy of America. It was an honor that you chose my school to test for and that you would like my school to teach you._

'You're right it was an honor!' Gaila thought with a smirk.

 _Now onto the purpose of this letter – your exam and whether or not you will be joining the ranks of my school._

 _You had a magnificent start to your exam! You were the first to make a move, which had you standing out from the rest of the examinees, but it also ignited them into taking action. As a hero, you should strive to inspire others around you, and you did just that at the start of your exam. It was simply beautiful to watch!_

Gaila's smirk grew, the words adding to her ego and confidence that she was being accepted into UENC.

 _Though-_

'THOUGH?! What the hell do you mean though?!'

 _Though, you were constantly fighting with an examinee the entire time of your exam. Even when you two were working together at the end of it, you were still fighting. A hero already has enough to deal with when fighting against a villain. A hero should not be fighting with their comrades, no matter your personal feelings towards them outside of battle and rescue missions. You were docked points for this._

"Docked points?!" she shouted, "How do I get docked points for something stupid like that?!"

Marina let out another sigh, "What did you do?"

"Nothing!" Gaila snapped, turning her attention back to the letter.

 _But between the power of your quirk, what teamwork you did manage to show, your sheer determination, and the legacy of your father – Felix Augusta – you have been accepted to The United East North Central Academy of America!_

 _I have great faith in you, Gaila Augusta. I was the one that pushed for your acceptance. I see a lot of myself in you, so I believe that you will become a great hero. But it will be much harder in convincing the other teachers here at my school. Be prepared to prove yourself._

 _The next page has instructions on what you will need to do before starting school. Please fill out the necessary information and send it back in the return envelope we have provided._

 _I am looking forward to seeing you at my school._

 _Welcome to UENC!_

 _Yours truly,_

 _Charlotte A. Victors_

Gaila read over the letter a few more times, her eyes lingering over the section that Show Stopper had stated she had great faith in her. It made her feel something that she rarely ever did. It made her feel humble. A hero like Show Stopper had argued for her acceptance into UENC. Someone like Charlotte Victors _wanted_ to have her in her school. Such a small paragraph had such a large impact on her.

"So? Were you accepted?"

Gaila was quickly brought out of her humility when she heard her mother's voice. She looked up with a smirk, "Of course I was!" she said, crumpling up the acceptance letter in her hand and shoving it in her pocket.

"I wanted to read that," Marina pouted, but soon smiled down at her daughter, "I'm very happy and proud for you. Your father would be very proud too. You're going to the school we both went to. He would be bragging to everyone about it."

Gaila let a rare, soft smile appear on her lips.

"Let's go see him," Marina said as she grabbed her car keys.

It didn't take long for the pair to reach the cemetery, Marina taking out a large umbrella for them to walk under together. They made their way up along the pathway that led to the middle of the cemetery where a rather large monument stood. A plaque was on the bottom of it with the name 'Felix Augusta' at the top of it. Under his name was a paragraph of information about the man and his life. Above the plaque was the man himself carved out of bronze, standing tall with a smile on his face and a fist in the air.

"Hello Felix," Marina began softly, "Our daughter has come to tell you something important," she said, pushing Gaila forward slightly.

"Hey dad," Gaila said, the triumphant smirk still on her face, "I was accepted into UENC today! Just like I said I would!"

The pair let the sound of rain fill the area before Gaila continued, her smirk falling briefly.

"I'm going to keep the promises I made. I'll live up to your name. Everyone will remember the Augusta name and what it means when they hear it. And once I've lived up to your name, I'll surpass you! You will always be my ultimate rival! You better not take your eyes off me!"

Marina let a few tears slide down her face at her daughter's words, knowing that Felix would be bursting with pride at her promise and challenge. She placed a hand on Gaila's shoulder, knowing it wouldn't be long until the world knew her name like she knew it. Like Felix had known it.

 **. : + : .**

 **Columbus, Ohio**

Charlotte stared down at the picture frame in her hand, her eyes fixed on a woman with purple hair just a shade lighter than her own.

"Hey mom," she said, a warm smile appearing on her lips, "Looks like your grandson made it into UENC. Following the family tradition," she said, thinking about how their entire family had gone to UENC since her grandmother's time, "You should see him. He's become a good boy who will become a good man, even if he is a twerp."

A few tears plopped onto the picture, Charlotte quickly wiping them off the photo and from her face when she heard her nephew running into the room.

"Are you serious?!" Reed shouted, "You seriously called me a twerp in my acceptance letter?!"

"Yeah, well, you are one, so why wouldn't I?!" Charlotte shouted in return, quickly turning on him, "You're lucky that I even put in the effort to write you one when you live with me! Be grateful!"

Reed was about to something smart in return when he saw the remnants of tears on her face, "Are you crying?"

"No!" she immediately replied, turning back around and placing the photo back on the shelf she had taken it off, "Like I'd be crying over my annoying nephew getting into UENC! I should be celebrating! I'll have the house to myself since you're moving into the dorms!"

"You are crying!" Reed said, a sly grin appearing on his face, "I mean, I can see why. You won't have this handsome face gracing your home for the entire school year. I'd cry over that too," he said, running a hand through his hair.

"You twerp!" she said as she rounded on him again and captured him in a headlock.

Reed laughed and tried to escape from her grasp, but Charlotte surprised him when she moved him into a proper hug.

"I'm so very proud of you, Reed."

He swallowed the lump that was suddenly building up in his throat while he hugged her in return. He then pulled away when he felt his emotions continuing to build up, his eyes becoming more watery than he would have liked them to.

"Don't get your tears all over me! I'm don't want to become a crying fool like you!"

Charlotte smiled as he turned away from her and quickly wiped an arm across his face. She then hugged him playfully from behind, a wide grin across her face.

"We're going out to celebrate! Pick wherever you'd like to go! And we'll invite the whole gang! We'll make a night of it!"

"So we're celebrating with all your stupid friends?!"

"Yep! But you can invite Katherine too! I know she has some celebrating to do too!"

Reed thought about it for a moment, "Yeah, fine. But you're paying for Kathrine too!"

"Deal!"

Charlotte let another smile appear while Reed started to debate over where to go for dinner. She knew things were about to change, but she had been prepared for this day. She had guided Reed as much as she could up until that day, but now he had to start guiding himself. He had to become his own hero, and she was okay with that because she'd be there to watch him grow into the great hero she knew he'd become.

* * *

 **A/N:** And there we are! Hope you all enjoyed it!

 **Credits**

 **Lilah Talbot – Momochan77**

 **Marina Augusta – Dreadburner94**

All right! I finally got this completed. Life has been super busy! Work has gotten much busier lately and I moved recently. The worst part of moving has to be the unpacking process….

But anyways! I finally found the time to sit down and get this written. And so many emotions with this chapter! It's ridiculous! Luckily I wrote Iris' section at home because it legit made me cry! The next two parts with Gaila and Reed I wrote in a Starbucks and I had to keep telling myself to keep it together in public, lol!

But I super loved the way this chapter turned out. I originally hadn't planned to include any other scenes with the exam, but so many of you seemed interested to see how other people did, and since Gaila, Raios, and Eddie were the other characters that had already been introduced, I decided to show them off in the exam. So I hope you enjoyed it!

Thank you to everyone that reviewed, favorited, and followed the story! You're all super awesome! I loved all the reviews and they still continue to give me life!

That should be it for this time around!

Until next chapter!

Yours Truly,

MyDearWatson


End file.
